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UNITED STATES OF AJJ ERICA, f 



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¥hE |!0VENylNT OF ItE^AL IlFE. 



AN ARGUMENT 



TO PROVE THAT 



IS 



BY THE -CELEBRATED 



JOHN ASGILL. Esq.. M. P. 



INTRODUCTORY ESSjlY, MEMOIFj. NOTES, 

AND 

MINISTEEIAL TESTIMONY, 

BY THE 

i 

Chaplain St. Nicholas Within Dublin. 

AUTHOR OF '^THE MYSTEKY OF GOD FINISHED," ETC., ETC., ETC. 



|m|orfe: ^^M"- 



ENNIS BROTHERS. PUBLISHERS AND PRINTERS. 
iN"o. 4S I3ey StT-eet. 

1S75. 

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(•Si 



.{^- 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1875, by 

ENNI8 BROTHERS, 
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, I). C. 



CONTENTS 



PORTKAIT. 



Title, 



Introductory, 



ME3I0RANDA OF THE ACTION OF THE IrISH HoUSE OP COMMONS TAKEN 

AGAINST Mr. Asgill, (A. D. 1703,) 31 

Memoranda of the Action of the English House of Commons 

TAKEN AGAINST MR AsGILL, (A. D. 1707,) 34 

Mr. Asgill'S Defence of His "'Argument" before the English 

House of Commons, 45 

Mr. Asgill'S Treatise, being "An Argument proving that accord- 
ing to the Covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the 
Scriptures, Man may be Translated from hence into that 
Eternal Life without passing through Death, although 
the Human Nature of Christ himself could not be thus 
Translated till he had passed through Death, (A.D. 1700).'' 57 

Notes, 118 

The Latter Day Revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, delivered 

IN 1866— "An Instrument of Ministerial Testimony." . . 129 



INTRODUCTORY. 



WITH SOME HISTORICAL MEMORAroA OF THE AUTHOR 
JOHN ASGILL, Esq., M. R 



N the year 1866 I made a special voyage to New York, to bring- 
out as an Ecclesiastical Missionary, because of the fulness of 
the time, the identical verity which in this extraordinary work 
is propounded by its now illustrious author. At that time I 
had never heard a syllable of his name, history, discovery, or suffer- 
ings because of it. This book of his is a martyr book. It was thrice 
burnt by the hands of the common hangman ! Twice, by the unani- 
mous vote of the House of Commons, in Ireland, and once in West- 
minister, by an analogous vote passed in the English House— but not 
unanimously there. It now, therefore, claims attention on a resur- 
rectional ground; and not only so, but as sealed by such ecclesiastical 
and Divine authority as redeems its statements and its arguments 
from their merely absolute and logical force, and presents them to 
the consideration of the reader as a Divine message, constituting a 
wonderful fulfillment of the Oracles of Heaven. 

Mr. Asgill was, during his life time, so universally viewed as a 
dreaming enthusiast, that little is, as yet, known of the specialities of 
his biography. Where wisdom was before its time, as in the case of 
our author, fame is an afterbirth, which scarcely sees the light 
until the memorials of its claimant have disappeared. Let us hope 
that this disinterment of the name of a great man may lead to 
inquiries about him that shall hereafter be repaid by satisfactory 
mementos. With respect to the exact date of his birth, his parentage, 



10 

education, personal appearance, and ana in general, tlie Editor is 
at present in the dark. And the brief biographical notice which 
he subjoins, gives a summary of all that he knows of the man. 
We find him thus mentioned in Ghamhei^s's Encyclojpcedia: 

'* ASGILL, John, an eccentric English litterateur, born about the 
middle of the 17th century. He studied for the bar, and at intervals 
during the whole of his checkered life transacted legal business in some 
form or other; but having early displayed a predilection for writing 
political pamphlets, he soon became involved, in spite of his clever- 
ness, in serious pecuniary difficulties. Fortunately for Mm, Parlia- 
ment had just passed an act (1699) for the resumption of forfeited 
estates in Ireland, and Commissioners were appointed to settle claims. 
A bright vision flitted across the mind of the much-harassed man. 
He sailed for the sister isle, and found the whole country wrangling 
in lawsuits. His talents, and the favor of the Commissioners, 
secured to him a lucrative practice ; and he even acquired sufficient 
influence to obtain a seat in the Irish Parliament. Some time, 
however, before taking possession of his seat, Asgill had published a 
most extraordinary pamphlet, entitled 'An argument proving that, 
according to the Covenant of Eternal. Life revealed in the Scriptures, 
r)ian may 'be translated hence into that Eternal Life without passing 
through Death, {1700). ' Much to Asgill's surprise, the public flew into 
a rage against this absurd production; the Irish parliament voted it a 
blasphemous libel, and the astonished author was expelled from the 
House after four days. In 1705, Asgill returned to England, and enter- 
ed the English Parliament as Member for Bramber, in Sussex. But 
the fame of his unlucky pamphlet haunted him perpetually, and at 
last proved a Nemesis; for the Englisli House, to be not less virtuous 
than the Irish one, took up the treatise, condemned it to be burnt 
by the common hangman, as profane and blasphemous, and expelled 
Asgill on the 18th of December, 1707. After this, his circumstances 
rapidly grew worse, until at last he found something like peace in 
the King's Bench and the Fleet, between which two places his 
excursions were confined for the term of his natural life. Here he 
continued to practice professionally, and — for he never succeeded in 
overcoming this weakness — to indite innumerable pamphlets on 
political and theological topics. He died in November, 1738." * 

^ Chambers's EncyclojKedia, London, 1860, 



11 

The deatli of our author was supposed to afford an indubitable 
evidence of the unsoundness of the principles for which, in this work, 
and in other works of the same kind, published during his life time, 
he argued : whereas, all that the fact proved was that he was prema- 
ture in looking for the results that he so forcibly drew as conclusions 
from the premises which he laid down. He was, in short, before his 
time, in advance of his age and generation ; the world was not ripe 
for his conclusions, and consequently they then produced no results — 
save the very unpleasant ones of the i)ersecution and intolerance 
through which he suffered. The age in which he lived was, in 
religious matters, one of intolerance and persecution. These were 
the sole principles of security against error that the Reformed 
Church had learnt from Mediaeval Romanism; and, when they 
appeared to be called for, they were exercised with a high hand. 
There can be no manner of doubt that had not the Church of Rome 
been thus trodden out in Ireland by penal laws, enacted in conformity 
with Roman practice, in the reigns of Elizabeth, of the Stuarts, and 
in those of the three Georges, the Roman Catholic Church would have 
survived as an established power in this country; and the Chantry 
Priest of St. Nicholas Within Dublin would have been more likely 
to be encouraging persecutors to hunt down " fanatics" of the type 
of John Asgill, than allowed himself to em]3loy his endowments to 
secure for the whole world through his teaching, not only the benefit 
of the principles of literal immortality that Asgill laid hold of, 
but other supernatural privileges,"^ which action, in his position as a 
beneficed clergyman, in an exempt jurisdiction, he is now enabled, 
with a certain measure of ecclesiastical weight, to submit to the 
Church in general. 

Amongst the historical memoranda which follow will be found a 
very natural and interesting answer given by Asgill to the question 
that was put to him by a friend : " What, in the name of wonder, 
could have put so preposterous an idea into your head ? " And his 
answer amounts to just this, that, having the Bible among his books, 
he was aroused to the consideration of certain passages of great 
obscurity that were not adequately explained by preachers or com- 
mentators, but which came home to his mind as quite satisfactory in 
their meaning, when viewed from the stand-point of his published 

"^ See the ''Instrument of Ministerial Testimony," given by the Editor at the 
appointed time^—page 129. 



12 

and extraordinary views. And this position of liis will be found amply 
sustained in tlie pages of his formerly condemned, but now revived 
work. 

If, indeed, we consider the subject dispassionately, we shall find 
that the whole point of his argument merely enforces what all Chris- 
tians confess even in their ordinary creeds. The point which he 
presses home is just this, that, the redemption won by Christ was co- 
extensive with the loss which man incurred through the rebellious fall 
or disobedience of our first parents; and since it was that fall which 
" brought death into the world and all our woe," redemption must, to 
be complete, bring perfect life with all its consequences. Thi^ came 
home to the mind of John Asgill with a force that was to him new 
and fresh, and because he pressed it as such on his contemporaries, 
he was, on that very account, viewed as a blasphemer, and by them 
pushed out of society amid general scorn and execration; whereas, 
had they had the patience calmly to weigh his opinions, they would 
have been forced to acknowledge that it was on their essential truth 
the best received and most universally acknowledged of the Articles 
of their own Christian Creed rested — such as, "I believe in the 
resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting;"*"! look for 
the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."f 
'' All men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give account 
for their own works; and they that have done good shall go into life 
everlasting,":]; etc. The force of all Asgill's arguments was directed 
to demonstrate that the redemption which Christ purchased with 
his own blood had won all this for man. A principle which the 
Church always admitted. And yet it was because our author enforced 
these arguments that he was intolerantly condemned as a blasphe- 
mer, expelled from his seats in two parliaments, and his book burnt 
by the common hangman. The sweeping condemnation of the Irish 
and English parliaments, condemned, with a hasty precipitancy, in 
their philosophical and general sense, the actual creeds of all 
Christendom — althougli I grant that the point specially intended as 
wrong and blasphemous was not this enforcement of the sufficiency 
of Christ's atonement for everlasting life, but the special circumstance, 
which Asgill insisted on, that this everlasting life was a present 
thing, then to be laid hold on and enjoyed, whereas all the creeds and 



^Aj^ostle's Creeds \ Nicene Creicl. % Athanasian Creed, 



18 

the whole scripture united in declaring that everlasting life, in the 
sense explained by our author, was not to come into operation during 
time at all. That it was not to begin to operate till there '' should 
be time no longer" — till doomsday — till the day of judgment, nor, in 
short, until the ever- enduring ages of eternity had succeeded to the 
transitory and perishing years, or days, or hours of time. Had the 
Senates, which condemned our author, duly discriminated in the 
case, they would not have been led into the action of intolerance and 
persecution that we now so unhesitatingly condemn as atrocious and 
unchristian, and they would, perhaps,havelielped their victim to see 
that, although he w^as not essentially wrong, he was, at least, cir- 
cumstantially so, and that the main truth, which he so powerfully 
enforced, was, as he presented it, dissociated from those script urally 
predicted surroundings which should accompany it, and which were 
essential to render it productive of the results that he expected from 
it. In fact the contending parties, Asgill and his opponents, were on 
both sides partially right and partially wrong: they were laboring 
both under a cloud of darkness that prevented the possibility of their 
seeing things correctly. But their joint and several courses of action 
are well calculated to instruct and warn us who have arrived at 
times which are essentially different, and w^hich need but to be fully 
understood in order to lead all intelligent Christians to see that all 
the circumstances w4iicli are essential to the realization of Asgill's 
hopes are now existent, and that when the faithful can be persuaded 
calmly to consider the f ally opened Oracles of Heaven, they w^ill 
satisfactorily see that the scripture is now fulfilled, the Kingdom of 
Heaven is already with us, and that we may now put out our hand 
and take of the Tree of Life and live forever. And not only so, but 
that the hour is come when they that are in their graves may be 
made to hear, through the Church, His voice, and to come forth. 
Why is this ? 

I reply, for two reasons: the 1st, absolute, or demonstrable on 
scriptural, reasonable, and historical grounds. The 2d, relatide, 
or having a necessary relation to the missionary messenger, or eccle- 
siastical servant of the Lord who proclaims the truth. 

Our readers will bear it in mind that this is but an introductory 
essay, and that it must be brief to be effective. Hence, it but 



14 

touches on tlie points involved, acting rather as a finger post for 
students who may wish to investigate, to direct them to the channels 
of information that may fully satisfy them, than as itself pretending 
to exhaust the subject, or fill up the outlines which it sketches. 

I. Now, it is absolutely demonstrable from scripture, from eccle- 
siastical history, and from a crowding assembly of most weighty 
evidences that the year 1866 was the very year of doom; that, from 
the foundation of the world, the Lord intended that in that year all 
things that had been predicted should be fulfilled. Let this astonish 
no one. We have an analogical fact to confirm our statement. None 
of our Christian readers will gainsay the universally acknowledged 
truth that it was at the hour when our Lord from Calvary's cross 
with a loud voice cried ^' itis finished," and gave up the ghost, that 
the wondrous plan of the redemption of mankind was consummated. 
That moment, and that cry concerned the whole universe. It tied 
an accomplished fact to a place and time that were foreseen and 
foreordained before ever the earth was, and that impressed a charac- 
ter upon the Creator and upon all his creatures that was to work for 
ever and ever. We know already sufficient to know that it needs 
no piled up language of exaggeration or of enforcement to lead to 
the acknowledgement of this. And yet, stupendous as was the fact, 
surpassingly wonderful as were its circumstances and its issues, it was 
to the men who witnessed it an ordinary every day occurrence. " It 
was only a malefactor {John, xmii:30) who was executed; an impostor 
whose contemptible pretensions {Matthew, (i'(vmi : 63) were exposed 
and put an end to forever. We heard a good deal of him and his 
absurd claims to a Sacred Character; but this fiasco has wound up the 
matter, and it is all over now." It was in this way the lookers on 
blasphemously spoke of the astonishing fact which completed the 
work of redemption, and it passed away thus. Now, so it was likewise 
in 1866. A work was then done that magnified the Divine wisdom and 
foreknowledge. It concerned, and was actually, in due time to be 
seen as, a constituting element of the everlasting life of millions, — 
buried and unborn, — and yet it may be said to have '' come without 
observation," {see Luke, xvii : 20); to have crept in, unheeded, as a thief 
in the night, {Rev., in : 3; xm : 15); but, as the sequel will show, all the 
more validly on that very account. This will become more and more 



15 

evident as ages roll on; and it will grow to be tliouglit to liave as 
necessary a relation to an immortal existence in felicity as tlie story 
and the doctrine of tlie cross lias liad for ages past to the peace and 
hope of the dying hours of the believer. It is impossible to enlarge 
on this subject here. But it is on record, from the age of Luther 
down to our day, that the Reformed Church constantly looked forward 
to the year of our Lord 1866 as about to be the decisive year. 
Most of the great writers of the Christian Church, for centuries 
before it came, anticipated the year mentioned as about to be the 
year of redemption— and the year of vengeance too. The evidences 
on this point have been sufficiently accumulated by Mr. Elliott in 
his Horce Apocalypticce. For myself, I can say, that, from the time 
that I was awakened to the sense of the importance of the Propheti- 
cal Scriptures, I made up my mind upon the point that "the great 
day of the Lord " would be in Anno Domini 1866. This was printed 
and published as my conclusion in the pages of the Witness, Yfhioh. I 
published as a serial at Leeds, in 1831-2 ; and, again, (in a new 
series), at Sheffield, in 1835-6; in my discussion with Father Maguire, 
in 1838, and subsequently in many printed documents, I was influenc- 
ed by the same date as about to be the coming finale — thus accepting, 
as my own, the general voice of the Church. Mr. Elliot, the first 
edition of whose great work appeared in 1844, throughout the whole 
of his pages enforces the same conclusion. He writes, " the epoch 
was noted as a remarkable one both by Romanists and Protestants. 
Paul the Deacon and Anastasius declare that it was in 606 that 
Phocas passed his. decree."" (Making the Pope the head of the 
universal Church). And Luther himself says, " the Pope and the Turk 
began at almost one time under the Emperor Phocas." f After him 
Osiander, who dated it similarly, writes " A Foca Imperators qui 
Papatum ipse FrirnaUnn publico edicto staMUrit.'' So, too, Bullinger 
speaks, under the fifth trumpet and on Apocalypse xiii xvii,i of the 
Papacy having been established by Gregory I. and the decree of 
Phocas. Again, John Foxe,§on the Vision of the Witnesses, writes, 
" If the commencing date, on this principle of Angelic months and 
years, be dated from Alaric's taking Rome, the ending date will be 
in 1672 ; if from Phocas's decree its ending would be 1866." And 
so, once more. Parens on Apocalypse xii :14. This array of early names 

* Horce Ajiocalypticce ^ vol. 3, page 163. * Addresses, 39, 57, 7U. 

t Table Talk, 11. 8U3. %Page 1U5 Cites Chytrous. 



16 

I have taken from Mr. Elliot, and it gives the voice of the Church 
as sounded forth by the great majority of her authorities. The 
minds of many were shaken as to this special year by a Roman 
authority of some weight, Cardinal Muratori, who alleged that the 
exact year of Phocas's decree was not 606 but 607. This led to a 
perilous diversion of men's minds that was calculated to divide their 
attention. And, from the greatness of the benefit which flowed to me 
from fixing my attention upon a given point of time for . some years 
of vigilance carried on without intermission, I have been led to 
conclude that this distraction of the attention of Christians was a 
device of the enemy to prevent any one from arriving at the vastly 
important discovery, to which I attained by firmly resolving that 
nothing should cause me to waver even by a hair's breadth from the 
conviction to which I had reached, many years before, that 1866, and 
that year alone, was to be awaited as " the day of vengeance of our 
God." {Isaiah, Ixi : 2). At first I contemplated the year, 2^er se, as the 
year which was discriminated from all others by the circumstance 
that it was separated by an interval of 1260 years, or '' a time times 
and half a time," from the setting up of Anti-Christian domination in 
the Church. This view fixed me to it as affording one or two points 
of time that should be especially looked out for. And, by having 
the mental eye thus directed for years, I was led at last to see that 
not that year only but the whole of the 60th decade in the 19tli 
century had been from the very beginning of the world fixed on in the 
counsels of the Father to be a ''wall" which should divide time 
from eternity. In this wall, or decade of years, there were ten distinct 
years : 1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865, 1866, 1867, 1868, 1869, 1870— 
ten stones, five on each side of the middle one {1865), which is the 
stone of division, and is not counted. The first, 1860, wholly faces 
time, and the last, 1870, wholly faces eternity. The two moieties of 
the wall are on each side of the central keystone, or stone of division. 
There are five on the time side that begin with 1860 and end with 
1864, and five on the eternity side that end with 1870 and begin with 
1866. Thus, 1866 is said to be the year of doom, for it was decreed 
that in that year the law of the eternal world should be proclaimed 
and begin to operate. 

Hitherto what I have said relates to numbers, and to the position 



17 

that Anno Domini 1866 was the predicted year that was to bring in 
life and immortality in the higher and literal sense of which I have 
spoken in my Message to the Church Universal, and which John 
Asgill maintained in his "Argument." It is my position that it is 
demonstrable that 1866, and no other year, was the Year of Doom ! 
Nay, I venture to say that the innumerable books which are in 
existence to enforce that point prove it to demonstration; and I can 
claim them all as on my side — from Martin Luther to Mr. Elliott. I 
claim, also, to have sufficiently demonstrated the principle in the 
sermon which I preached before Trinity College, Dublin, for my 
Degree of Doctor in Sacred Theology, in the year 1853, and that it is 
sustained by the dense cloud of witnesses to whom I have just 
alluded. 

Such, then, is my first or absolute reason for alleging that eternal 
life, without the intervention of the grave, together with exemption 
from disease or decay, is now, upon the general adoption of a scriptur- 
ally demonstrable law of life, within reach. Let it be investigated. 
Let the validity of the great array of witnesses that I have alluded 
to be fairly tried, and the soundness of the conclusion that I have 
drawn will be admitted. 

XL However, the reply will be given with full confidence, 
*' How can you pretend that 1866 was the predicted year which 
constituted the great day of the Lord, when every thing continues 
now as it was then. When the year came and went, and nothing 
happened to distinguish it from the half-dozen years that preceded 
and that followed it ? " 

My rejoinder to this reply will be, suppose, for argument sake, 
my Message prove to be well founded. Suppose after the lapse of 
ten generations, or any other assigned number, I shall still be found 
alive and well, and verifying by an ever increasing power that the 
principle which I have announced is true and from God, will men 
be likely to be found to dispute it then ? Can it be supposed possible 
that they will not gather around the then Enoch, of say Enoch's age, 
365 years, and be only too solicitous to be taught how to walk with 
God, so as that they may each be made a participator of like benefits ? 
Nay, will not one hundred years, or even fifty, by their simple 
transit, leaving the Messenger a living demonstration of the truth 



18 

of his principles, work wonders of conviction in gainsay ers ? It is 
beyond a question that they will. However, I shall be met by my 
own example, and. the case of John Asgill be cast up against me. 
He had such a confidence as I now speak of, and yet he did not stretch 
his span of life beyond the ordinary limits. So strong were his 
convictions, that, after he had brought forward his arguments, feel- 
ing them to be indisputable, he said, ''If I am mistaken in the 
dependence upon which I repose, I shall die of no religion at all." 
This was the tenth item of blasphemy that was advanced against 
him in the English House of Commons. And his death, which took 
place in due time, was supposed to constitute a full justification of 
the sentence which denounced him as guilty. Yet, here I am now 
to explain the reasons of his death, and to make it evident that they 
are of such a nature as to leave his arguments in full force when the 
reasons why he died, notwithstanding them, are understood. 

But while the perpetuation of my life, as the Messenger of this 
great dispensation, would, undoubtedly, constitute a strong argument 
for the truth of the principle on which I take my stand, I can not 
allow the supposition to be well founded that would make my death, 
in the ordinary course of Nature, to be a counter-demonstration on 
the other side. For there is some reason to suppose that life will 
not be perpetuated for any one, nor the resurrection of any of the 
dead be achieved, until faith in this last day revelation of the nature 
of the work of redemption shall be quite general. Sacrificial 
worship effectuates, as I hold, a real out-pour of the vitalizing ele- 
ment from the faith-seen Cross of Calvary. It may not be, however, 
until this out-pour shall constitute a river, broad and sufficiently 
deep to be, in the figurative language of the Prophet, swam in, that 
it shall operate its vitalizing effect upon the converted worshiper. 
(Let the reader study attentively, as perhaps sustaining this position, 
EzeMel, chapter xlvii : 5 — 1,^ verses). The analogy of the past 
would seem to warrant this statement. While we trace this latter 
day civilization of ours, and the benefits which it yields to every 
individual, and to every hearth and home in Christendom, to the 
operation in every direction of Christian principles; yet through 
what centuries of gainsaying and antagonism, of error and of 
apostasy, of self-seeking and of schismatical working have they not 



1<) 

had to struggle on? And even still (to take up the Parable of the 
Prophet) " the miry places and the marshes thereof are not healed, 
but given up to salt." {Ibid, mrse 11 ). I am, therefore, disposed to 
think that the full benefits of this last day dispensation will not be 
fully realized for all until Christian society in both its divisions, the 
spiritual and the political, shall cooperate to place the crown upon 
the head of Him " whose right it is ; " and until popularly enacted 
law shall cause the means of grace for perpetual life and its circum- 
stances to flow deeply through all the channels of society. 

While the Christian religion was at best but partially known, and 
to a great measure quite unknown and misapprehended, its estab- 
lishment by law was of questionable value, or even possibly attended 
with injurious consequences, not uncalculated to warrant the cry 
made against it. But when Christ comes to his church with the 
full manifestation of his will, and ties miraculous issues to the 
conjoint action of belie vers, which can not be brought about without 
law, or which can be better effected thereby than otherwise, gain- 
saying as to an Established Religion will cease. None will stand 
up for consumption, bronchitis, and ague ; for small-pox, typhoid 
fever, and scarlatena, with their attendant death, on " the voluntary 
system," when the religion of Jesus Christ, demonstrable from 
open scripture, and '' established by law," will secure the enjoyment 
of perpetual health and life, with other supernatural benefits, thus 
superseding hospitals, dispensaries, and asylums of all kinds. 

Now, since I have obtained my advanced knowledge and (if it be 
knowledge, then also) wisdom in a course of action in strict con- 
formity with the laws, canons and ordinances of the Holy Catholic 
Church, in the Anglican communion, and with that branch of it with 
which my lot was by my vocation cast, I cannot deviate from the 
strict line of duty in any respect, lest I should by my volunteer 
action go astray and forfeit my privileges. If men then desire the 
benefits of which I speak, they must aid me and work with me in 
my conscientious action according to the line of duty that I follow 
— for otherwise I dare not act at all. 

Asgill's position was, that, the death of Christ constituted an 
atonement that was a full discharge for Adam's offence, and for all 
the consequences which it entailed, and, that, man died simply 



20 

because he wanted perspicacity to see tliis, courage to rely on it as all 
sufficient, and wisdom to plead it against tlie common enemy Death; 
for, that, Gfod was so righteous a judge and governor, that, if the 
plea were courageously advanced, it would be in justice acknow- 
ledged, and so man be allowed to live for ever. Now here a great 
truth was pleaded, but one not less important overlooked. 

It was undoubtedly true that Christ's atonement, and obedience 
unto death, had paid the ransom demanded for man's liberation from 
penalty. But, it was overlooked, that, death was not to be triumphed 
over save as ''the last enemy." Christ ''must reign till he hath 
placed all enemies under his feet ; the last enemy that shall be 
destroyed is death." (i Corinthians, xv r25, 26). At his resurrection, 
our Lord's triumph was all through connected with intimatioDS to 
his followers that he left them to endure mourning, lamentation and 
woe, unbroken by his interference save that, as an invisible Provi- 
dence, he should set a hitherto and no further to the violence of the 
adversary : the gates of Hell (which are the grave) should not 
l)revail against the Church ; but they, nevertheless, should war against 
it with a most potent antagonism, up to any extent of humiliation 
and subjugation short of absolute prevalence; while under distress 
and breach, exemption only from total defeat was promised, with 
consolation through "a Comforter" under affliction. Nay, more, 
there was given a foretold revelation of every stage in the announced 
affliction This was especially written and placed in the hands of the 
Church, and it included information as to the dates which, during a 
course of ages that should run through twenty centuries, every great 
event concerning the Church should bear. While predictions on the 
whole subject pervade the whole of the Sacred Writings, their 
special locale is the Apocalypse and the writings of the Prophet 
Daniel. Now, all these documents, when intelligently read, and in 
the proper spirit, conspire in pointing to and fixing the attention of 
the wise upon the aforesaid epoch 1866 as constituting the termina- 
tion of the weakness and endurance of the Church and the com- 
mencement for it of, at once, a triumph unexampled in its nature, 
and of "the day of vengeance of our God." {Isaiah, Ixi : 2). There 
was, moreover, connected with the Epoch, in our Lord's reference to 
it, a speciality of a very peculiar character, and this was, that, he 



21 

exhausted language, and one might almost say, (with reverence be it 
spoken), he exhausted patience too, in reiterating again and again, 
and again, a warning with respect to it, to watch ! Watch, watch, 
watch ! What I say unto one I say unto all, watch ! The day will 
come, as a thief (watch ! ) to break open your house, (Mattheio, xxw:J{S), 
watch ! There is a snare in the case for all that dwell on the face of 
the whole earth — watch ! " Behold, I come as a thief, blessed is he 
that watcheth and keepeth his garments." 

These reiterated injunctions very deeply impressed me, and with 
at once, as the time drew nigh, confidence, determination and alarm. 
Alarm, lest I should at His coming be found unwatchf ul, and so find 
myself cast out; confidence that I could at least fulfill this simple com- 
mand ; and determination that I would watch so as man never watch- 
ed before. I early resolved to give myself to the work of vigilance 
exclusively. That I might do so, I made elaborate calculations as to 
the time of our Lord's life and history, and, having received reasuring 
answers from high authority in the learned world, I separated myself 
from all other avocations that I might carry out a work of systematic 
vigilance : for I resolved that my vigilance should be systemati- 
cally and incessantly carried forward, and, also, in connection with 
permanent written records. Our Lord's age from his birth to his 
death; again from his birth to the end of his final year, A. D. 33, (the 
last day of Daniel's seventy weeks); again the interval from the time 
that I began to watch to the Anniversary of the Crucifixion in A. D. 
1866, and the interval also from the same starting point to the end of 
1866, constituted three streams of duration which, with several others 
also, I kept on record from day to day — counting not merely the days 
and the hours, but, lest I should lose any possible item of the exacted 
watchfulness, I drew down my streams of duration to the minutes 
and the seconds of time through every day as it ran on and ran out. 
In fact, I acted with respect to 'QQ, as I suppose our Lord did with 
respect to 33 ; and the two points of time referred to were the anni- 
versary of the Crucifixion and that of the Nativity — which included 
the last day of the year, six days later. And the record lies by me, and 
shall be preserved forever in dense streams of figures — these, with 
subsequent like records of vigilance, filling eight volumes as large 
as the ledgers of a counting-house— for they are an abiding and unde- 



niable evidence of the reality of tliat hope of '' the Revelation of the 
Lord '' by which I was possessed and on which I acted, supposing 
that it was his personal advent that was to come. Being prepared to 
submit these volumes of records to inspection, I unaffectedly declare 
that I myself never view them as monuments of vigilance without 
a measure of amazement: and, when I reflect upon the results, of 
gratitude too. The case was truly enough one ot parturiens inons — 
I certainly expected that the end would be the coming of the Lord, 
for which I was preparing, whereas my figuring proved to be a clue 
that led me into the midst of a new Bible of figures, as sigDificant as 
the old Bible of letters and words, comprising history and prophecy, 
precept and promise, law and Gospel, and as certainly inspired by the 
Holy Ghost, and more wonderful than that with which all are more 
or less acquainted, for this new bible discovered the law of literal 
and present immortality for the body, together with perpetual health, 
strength and freshness of person, so as that the believer's ^'leaf 
(otherwise, his personal appearance) should not wither," that 
" whatsoever he should do should prosper," with additional wonders 
more wonderful still, but all detailed in my American testimony. 
I add furtlier, that, the very fact, or series of facts, which grew 
out of the faith which I had in ''the fulness of the times" led to 
settled habits of keeping on record the numbers of sacred and per- 
sonal times (as the numbers of the days of our Lord's and my own 
personal existence) that I found myself subsequently under a neces- 
sity of adhering to, and that this very necessity led me to develope 
still more fully. Thence I was led to see in this new method of life 
a relation to a variety of additional Scriptural truths of the utmost 
interest and importance. These truths had reference to every 
proper name recorded in the holy Scripture, and, indeed, to all 
names in all languages, and that not as mere matter of idle curiosity, 
but as connected with ecclesiastical action on the part of the Church 
that must as certainly lead to resurrection from the dead, as the disin- 
terring of a seed from an Egyptian mummy, and the planting of it in 
a soil where it should be brought under the operation of those causes 
which elicit vegetative life from the seminal growth, would lead to its 
fructification and propagation under the ordinary processes of agricul- 
tural law. Thus, I was gradually led to the conviction that the work 



of the redemption of mankind from disease, decay, and death, and the 
restoration of all the buried faithful, was to be accomplished through 
the Churchy and that we had arrived at the discovery that the grand 
finale that was universally expected to be about to be accomplished 
by the second advent of Christ was, in fact, to be brought about 
otherwise, and in a manner that would more signally and wonder- 
fully glorify the Almighty ! 

None will deny that if in 1866 a great white throne had appeared 
among the clouds, with one like unto the Son of Man seated on it, 
that if all Christendom had been suddenly '' caught up '* and made 
to stand before it, some on the right and some on the left hand, 
while heaving graves poured forth countless thousands arrayed in 
white robes to join the vast assembly, and that every item of the 
well-known conjectural programme of the prophetical interpreters 
had been after this sort realized, it would have been very glorious, 
surprising, and stupendous. The question is, who would have been 
there on the occasion ? And surely the organizers of the great relig- 
ious societies, their chairmen, treasurers, and trustees would be 
admitted to a high place. Surely, the great sensational preachers 
and money -gatherers for religious objects, to whom thousands 
bow down in admiration, (of their money-getting power in fact), 
would have been conspicuous figures. Surely, the chiefs of 
religious churches of all sorts would have soared aloft — and vast 
would have been the amazement had the most famous names of our 
times not been there in some way or other recognizable. " There's 
his Grace ; so I expected. But where's my Lord ? And where's 
the Dean, and the Archdeacon? And w^iere's our much revered 
Pastor ? Which is St. Paul ? And which the Blessed Virgin ? " The 
mere attempt, not to sketch the whole grandeur of the scene, (that 
would be beyond human power), but to lay hold, even in idea, on a few 
of the salient particulars, will serve to show the wondrous wisdom of 
the alternative that the truth does in fact develope. By the first 
coming of Christ, and through the excruciating, heart-piercing 
finale, " the thoughts of many hearts were revealed,^' for compara- 
tively few came to the Messiah of the carpenter's bench until, 
through Providential circumstances, he was manifested as Chief in 
the Palace of the Caesars under Constantine. And then they flattered 



24 

themselves that they crowded round him for his absolute and intrin- 
sic worth. Now, also, through a like profundity of wisdom, a plan, 
the simplest in the world, shows whether there is " faith on the 
Earth." {see Luke, xviii : 8.) A simple gospel message delivered by 
a minister of the church, who never viewed himself as a higher 
character than the chiefest of sinners saved by grace through faith 
only, and who was only known as striving to fulfill from day to day 
the calls of his position, without aiming at aught else than simply to 
meet his duties as they called, is made use of to detect the hollow- 
ness of profession, the worldliness of claimants to heavenly-minded- 
ness, and to lay bare to the very core the character of the Christian 
world everywhere. 

Every gathering of worshippers in Christendom implies more or 
less earnestness in each and all to attain to eternal life and win a 
crown of glory in the presence of the Lord forevermore. This is the 
motive which is supposed to animate believers, and to stir them to 
expend thousands of thousands, and millions in the founding of 
Churches, Schools, Hospitals, Tabernacles, Synagogues, Asylums, 
and what not. Of course there is a vast amount of awakened senti- 
ment and display of good will in the lines of action that issue in 
these results, and they claim to spring simply from religious faith; 
but tested by the aquafortis of divine wisdom, and of simple truth, 
what a brilliancy of the precious metal takes its departure, leaving 
to manifest itself the virus of a base alloy! It thus seems that it is 
not eternal life and the light of the countenance of the Invisible 
Griver thereof that is in truth the object. Nor is it in reality Gfod 
that is worshipped. Men are attracted by the crowd. They are 
inspired by the rush of thousands. They will not be behind their 
neighbors. They will not be out of the religious fashion of the hour. 
They will keep up their church; or they will make a name by the 
choice of a party, making way, and " sure to win." They will leave 
behind a venerated name — wisely sacrificing to their net, and burning 
incense to their drag. Behold, the anatomy of millions of the faith- 
ful. '' The faithful ? " while, throughout their whole existence, they 
have turned a deaf ear to the dying injunctions of their Lord ! 
Attentive vigilance carried out would have conducted at the time to 
the discovery which it opened to me at 1866; which, Gfod forgive me. 



25 

I never tried before, and which was never acted on by mortal man 
since it was carried out by our Lord himself previously to his death, 
(for I am convinced His precepts to vigilance. Watch ! Watch ! 
Watch ! grew out of this practice in his own case). All the facts 
tending to prove that the creature in his best state is altogether van- 
ity — nothing, and less than nothing. That all our boasted excellence 
is shallow, superficial, and worthless ; and that He alone who origin- 
ated the creature can impart or implant qualities superior to the 
merest vanity. Consequently that of Him, and from Him, and by 
Him are all things; that to Him alone is owing worship, and honor, 
and praise; and that creature worship, more or less, is nothing short 
of treason against Heaven. Not so much a simple delusion, as a 
killing apostasy from the prime duty of the creature: that is, to wor- 
ship and to serve God alone. 

It is my claim that my message is nothing less than a Divine lega- 
tion ; and if it truly announce, as I believe it does, a change in the 
law of nature that must be miraculous, it can be no less, (for who 
but the God of Nature can operate a change in the Law of Nature ?) 
And not the least remarkable circumstance connected w4th it is the 
way in which the messenger was prepared to deliver it, and the 
world was prepared to receive it. How unfitted the world was for 
the message of life in the time of John Asgill, or at any previous 
period, is made manifest by the treatment that he experienced, and 
by the annals of Ecclesiastical history antecedently. Because he was 
a lay man in Parliament he was expelled from his seat as a blasphe- 
mer, and at the same time he was laughed to scorn because he, as a 
layman, had the presumption to handle questions in theology. 

My position, on the other hand, was that of a clergyman of the 
highest order of authority, for I was called to receive the degree of 
Doctor in Sacred Theology by the zeal, admiration, and approval of 
the whole Protestant public, and through their liberality, so that I 
was fiated as a divine of the highest qualifications by the highest 
tribunal of learning in the Kingdom, which acted at the call of the 
general public, so that, in the orderings of Divine Providence, I was en- 
dorsed and upon proofs publicly admitted of my competency in a way 
that none could gainsay. And yet, I doubt not, had I been called on 
to deliver my delegated message at a time when the church of Ireland 



26 

was under the inspiration of political authorities, I would have been 
sacrificed by the " Whateley " of the day, in order, in some shape or 
other, to propitiate Party. The laws of the State Church rendered a 
single clergyman subject to possible detriment, disparagement, or 
damage through the Prelates or one of the Order. However, the law 
of disestablishment abrogated all these laws, and rid me of the risk 
of discredit or damage, if such were to be contemplated through a 
manageable hierarchy. The records of the times of John Asgill inform 
us that his sufferings arose through the hostility of the whole body 
of the clergy. They were all against him. One of them published a 
pamphlet violently assailing him, and this was dedicated, by his 
own permission, to the then Archbishop of Dublin, the most highly 
esteemed divine of those days. Doctor Narcisses Marsh, under whose 
imprimatur the document was printed. It was a mild expression of 
the general feelings of the clergy. Surely if they so resented that 
which was declared blasphemy when it appeared through the 
authorship of a lawyer, uncontrollable would have been their indig- 
nation had it emanated from a churchman. Asgill was particularly 
inoffensive — a mere opinionaire , not at all a propagandist of his 
peculiar views. He seemed rather incautiously betrayed into print- 
ing, than led to do so by anything resembling religious zeal. The 
book rather dropped from his hands with a sort of apprehension of 
evil from it, than was pushed into circulation to make proselytes. 
Yet, notwithstanding this, he was in consequence driven from 
society, and persecuted to the death. Now, on the contrary, I was 
allowed to bring out views much more extreme than those of Asgill, 
as a boon to the Church, and as a means of warding off evils by 
which it was menaced. Had they even been entertained, they would 
in the very nature of things have necessarily postponed the evil day. 
And had they been, on due examination, fiated as ecclesiastically 
sound, and proved so, deferred it forever. There is no member of 
the Irish Church who can now deny this; or, at least, if he ventures 
on the denial, prove it valid. For it is out of the power of logic to 
demonstrate that if inquiry had been instituted into my views, and 
Mr. Gladstone been informed that the questions which I had raised 
previously, both by petition in Parliament, in both Houses of Convo- 
action of both of the English Provinces Canterbury and York, and 



in the Convention of tlie Protestant Episcopal Church ot* the 
United States, were under investigation, he would not at least have 
postponed his hostile action for dis-establishment and dis-endownient 
until a decision had been arrived at, and that that postponement 
would not have eventuated in a triumph for the Church. I contend 
that it would. Who can prove that it would not ? And this state of 
things makes me now to say truly, as I do firmly believe it, that^ 
through the effect of my principles, I am now the only uninjured and 
undegraded member of the Irish branch of the late United Church 
of England and Ireland. With the gift of eternal life, I have a 
perpetuity in my church estates which I shall thus, please God, 
retain forever. When Mr. Asgill startled his age by declaring 
that death could be avoided — that, by virtue of the redemption 
that had been accomplished by Christ, the children of Adam 
might escape not only death of the soul, but that of the body 
also — he promulgated a great verity. But he overlooked the con- 
ditions that were needed to render it effective. Fur such im- 
mortality, not merely the certainty of the principle for which he 
argued was needed, but the arrival of the season to which it was 
assigned. And, when that should come, there would be needed, also, 
the proclamation to mankind at that time, by due authority from 
Heaven, of the astonishing change in the laws of nature and of life 
that had thus arrived. 

The event has served to open up the matter still further. Christ 
had been preached and received as the Saviour of the soul under 
terms of salvation that involved the idea that it was " appointed 
unto men once to die," a salvation conferred, in short, with the idea 
of the disease, or decay and death of the body. The very rite 
which grafted the neophyte, whether infant or adult, into the 
Church was, after a manner, a forecasting of the finale that was 
adjudged to be universal : for he was " buried with him by 
baptism into death." {Romans, vi : 4-)- Ai^d every writer in the 
Bible was so inspired to speak of death as certain. Hence, it was 
as the Saviour of dying men that Christ had been revealed by 
all the Apostles and preachers of the Church ever since. But this 
was only the first stage in the work of redemption. Through this 
and thus far men were only '' begotten to a lively hope " of a higher 



28 

thing — what was that ? The same Apostle himself at once answers, 
a " salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." {see 1 Peter, i :3-5). 
And this was called emphatically '' the Revelation of Christ." The 
Apostle speaks of it most encouragingly further on at the IStii verse, 
thus, ''Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and 
hope to the end for the grace (or favor of this revelation) that is to 
be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." We may 
well suppose that the holy Apostles were themselves led to think 
that the predicted grace or favor of this revelation was to be the actual 
personal appearance and second coming of the Lord in the same 
human body in which he had been crucified, and to this view of the 
subject the translators of our ''authorized version" contributed 
when they translated the very same word cxTtoHaXvif^i'^ (apocalypse 
or revelation) coming, in 1 Corinthians, i : 7, writing thus, " waiting 
for the coining of our Lord Jesus Christ." And this view of a second 
advent, as the more sensational and striking, was universally adopted 
as the correct nature of the coming future Whereas, the Lord from 
the very begining knew that it would be nothing more, for the first 
at least, than the preaching of him, in a new way, as the Saviour of 
the whole man without the annexed condition of death for the body. 
Practically speaking, however, I find it to have been of immense 
importance that I was preceded in my very extraordinary work by a 
forerunner like Asgill. In an announcement so extraordinary, men 
can scarce hear it without being led to entertain the idea that the 
man who announces it must be crazy, beside himself, out of his 
mind ! It takes off the necessity for this supposition to be informed 
that a man of learning and of high position, enriched with legal 
wisdom and great ability, and quite removed from any imputation of 
fanaticism, was led previously to entertain the same hypothesis on 
quite distinct grounds. His arguments are so sound and valid that 
it is unnecessary to go over the ground which they have made sure. 
While the reasons why they failed of being followed by the expected 
results in his day are so plain they do not now stand in the way at all ; 
on the contrary, their re-motion constitutes a groundfor entirely new 
arguments in favor of Asgill's hypothesis, and causes men to lift up 
their heads admitting that all that alters the case immensely. In 
experience I have found that intelligent opponents who gave to my 



29 

statements an unwavering and forcible opposition, liave been vastly 
shaken when they became aware, from the view of his book, that, 
after all, I had but disinterred the hypothesis of a person who had 
some claim to be an authority. I have found, moreover, that the 
foul intolerance with which he was visited, — in having been twice 
thrust out of Parliament, and his book, by the votes of the House, 
thrice burnt by the common hangman, — have originated a sympathy 
for him of the sort felt for a martyr, and disposed hearers to the 
conviction that so much earnestness must have sprung from the 
conviction that the victim must have felt that he had very firm 
ground to rest on, I sincerely trust that these reasons may prevail 
with all those who may read these pages, as well for their own sakes 
as for the sake of mankind in general. 

Because, while our blessed Grod has thus opened to his children a 
blessed hope as to a good time now within reach, he has tied the 
results to a course of action in the way of religious duty, without 
which the great blessings (health, strength, and life) will not be 
realized, Do we not all acknowledge that so it is with respect to the 
great, but still minor blessing, of the salvation of the soul only ? 
Why else our missionaries to pagan lands, and our missionary socie- 
ties to send them there ? Is it not because we know that there will 
not be salvation through Christ if there continue to be a degading, 
embruting service rendered to idols ? So, in order that the full sal- 
vation for the body of which I speak may be attained, Grod has 
ordained that there shall be a thorough union in the Christian Church, 
and the general adoption of divine services in which not merely the 
thoughts of the worshippers are to be rightly disposed by the Holy 
Spirit acting in and with the ministry, but in which the actual 
words of the worshipers are to be dictated by the mouth of God 
himself. There are other conditions of the law of life, scriptural, 
reasonable, and glorious, that I am prepared to lay before the proper 
tribunal, when called upon to do so, which must by their nature 
remove all the evils of society and of mankind. But, this is not 
the place nor the occasion. While the Christian religion continues 
to be a system of what is denominated orthodox doctrine, as to 
the nature of which sects will differ and dispute forever, to con- 
template a union among the various bodies would be a vain dream ; 



BO 

but wlien mankind sliall be compelled to acknowledge tliat liealtli, 
strength, and life, accompanying superior holiness and righteousness 
may flow from the teaching, prayers and action of the Church, 
conferring literal immortality upon its members, the thought of 
disunion will be viewed as having the nature of suicide, and be 
shunned as death. Then, indeed, wars will cease in all the world. 
They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into 
prunning hooks — the lion will lie down with the lamb, and the leopard 
with the kid. They will neither hurt nor destroy in God's Holy 
Mountain, and earth will be Paradise Restored : "The restitution 
of all things." 



<K2^^|SH> 



31 



MEMORANDA 

OF 

PARTICULARS RESPECTING THE PARLIAMENTARY CAREER OF 
JOHN ASG-ILL, Esq., M. P. 




♦||HE Journals of the Parliaments of the Two Kingdoms 
)'® |1| are printed in " Blue Books/' and are preserved in large 
(g) ijl \g) volumes to be lasting records of the proceedings of the 

Legislature. From these the particulars which follow are 
taken. 

In the Journals of the House of Commons in Ireland, the volume 
which is lettered on the back as running from A. D. 1693 to 1713, 
Part I, Vol. II, we find the first mention of our author at page 214. 
And in the list of members returned to the House which met the 
21st of September, 1703, in the second year of the reign of Queen 
Anne, is the following entry : 

" Borough Enniscorthy : 

MoRLEUS Sanders, Armiger. 
Johannes Asgill, Armiger, [Expulsus]. 
WiLLiELMUS Berry, Armiger, [Loco Asgill]." 

At page 317 we have the following: 

^'A motion being made that a book entitled 'An argu- Several 

paragraphs 
ment proving that, according to the covenant of eternal of a 

life revealed in the Scriptures, man may be translated 

into that eternal life without passing through death, 



book read. 



32 

altliougli tlie liuman nature of Christ liimself could not 
be thus translated till he passed through death.' 

Resolved, nemine contradicente, ihsit the said book Which are 

voted heretic- 
contains in it several heretical and blasphemous doc- al and 

trines and positions contrary to the Christian religion 

and the established doctrine of the Church of Ireland, 

and destructive of human society. 

Ordered that the said book be burnt by the hands of To be burnt, 
the common hangman, before the gate of this House, 
on Wednesday next, at twelve of the clock, and before 
the Tholsel, at one of the clock, the same day, and that 
the Sheriffs of the City of Dublin be required to see 
the same done accordingly. 

The House being informed that John Asgill, Esq., a Mr. Asgill, a 

Member, 
Member of this House, is author of the said book, the author. 

Ordered that Mr. Asgill (being now out of town) do To attend in 
^ ^ ^ ^ his place, 

attend in his place on Monday fortnight, to answer the 

said matter." 

We next find the subject brought forward on Monday, 10th of 
October, 1703, at page 333, in the manner following, viz. : 

" Then the House, according to the order of the day, House hears 
' ^ -^ Mr. Asgill 

heard Mr. Asgill, a Member of this House, on an infor- in his place, 

mat ion against him that he is the author of a book 

entitled ' An argument proving that according to the 

covenant of eternal life revealed in the Scriptures, man 

may be translated into that eternal life without passing 

through death, although the human nature of Christ 

himself could not be thus translated till he passed 

through death.' And having examined several wit- aiid examine 

^ ° witnesses. 

nesses touching that matter, and having heard what 

Mr. Asgill could say in his own justification, and he 

. , T ' Mr. Asgill 

having withdrawn; withdraws. 

Resolved, nemine contradicente, that John Asgill, Resolved that 
Esq., a Member of this House, is author of said book, the author. 



33 

Resolved, nemine contradicente, that John Asgill, Expelled, 

and incapable 
Esq., a Member of this House, be expelled this House, of being 

and be ever hereafter mcapable of being chosen, return- 
ed, or sitting" a Member in any succeeding Parliament 
in this kingdom." 

While this action hostile to Asgill grew out of his book, and was 
taken against him by the House, we think it well to state, that, his 
return for the Borough for which he sat was disputed by a rival can- 
didate, Mr. Francis Harrison, who forwarded a petition against Mr. 
Asgiirs retention of the seat, and demanded a new election, which 
might afford him redress. However, on the expulsion having taken 
place, Mr. Harrison asked leave to withdraw his petition; and at page 
334 of the journal, under the date of October 14th, 1703, we read, 

" Ordered that Mr. Speaker do issue his warrant to Warrant 
^ for 

the Clerk of the Crown, to make out a writ to the Sheriff Enniscorthy. 

of the County of Wexford for electing a Burgess, to sit 
in this present Parliament for the Borough of Ennis- 
corthy, in the County of Wexford, in the room of Mr. 
Asgill, lately expelled this House.'' 



cK^JS^H) 



34 



JOURNALS OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS, ENGLAND. 

A. D. 1707. 6\ Queen Anne. 



{Page 396.) 

10^? Day of November, Monday. 

Tlie Speaker acquainted the House that he had received a letter 
from John Asgill, Esq. , (a Member of this House), from the Fleet 
Prison, complaining that he was detained from attending the service 
of this House by reason of two judgments executed upon him at 
the suit of John Holland, Thomas Mathews, and John Wetton, and 
other mesne process; and that he desired the same to be communi- 
cated to the House — which was read to the House, and is as follows, 

viz. : 

Fleet Prison, Nov. 7, 1707. 
Sir: 

I think it my duty to make known to the House that I am 
detained from attending their service by reason of two judgments 
excuted upon me by the procurement of John Rice, and Hezekiah Ben- 
son, his Attorney. The one at the suit of Thomas Mathews and John 
Wetton, trustees for the said Rice of lands purchased by him with 
debentures granted him by Parliament — and, as such, since vested 
in Her Majesty — and of some other mesne process, from which I had 
delivered myself by bail, if not disabled by these executions. 

I am advised the proper method of advertising the House is by 
letter to yourself ; but if, upon communicating of this, they should 
please to signify their pleasure for any other way of address, my 
obedience is ready to their commands. 

Sir, 
Your most humble servant, 

JOHN ASGILL. 
To the Right Honourable 

John Smith, Esquire, 
Speaker of the Honourable the House of Commons. 



85 

Ordered that a committee be appointed to examine the matter of 
said complaint, and search precedents what had been done for dis- 
charge of any Members imprisoned under execution and mesne pro- 
cess, and report the same to the House. And it is referred to Mr. 
Secretary Harley, Mr. Medlycott, Sir Wni. Drake, Mr. Tempest, Mr. 
Gwyn, Mr. Lowndes, Sir Henry Colt, Mr. Newport, Sir Robt. Eden, 
Mr. Freeman, Mr. Montgomery, Mr. York, Mr. Foley, Sir Hen. 
Grough, Mr. Abercromby, Sir Thomas Hanmer, Mr. Eyres, Mr. An- 
nesley, Mr. Rowney, Sir Rich. Onslow, Mr. Peyton, Sir Rushout 
Cullen, Mr. Aislaby, Mr. Craggs, Mr. Palmes, Mr. Kendall, Sir John 
Erskyn, Mr. Bennet, Mr. Moore, Mr. Cowper, Mr. Ward, Mr. Skip- 
pon, Sir Grodfrey Copley, Sir Walter Yonge, Sir William St. Quintin, 
Mr. Pulteney, and all the Gentlemen of the Long Robe; and they are 
to meet this afternoon, at 5 o'clock, in the Speaker's Chamber, and 
have power to send for persons, papers and records, and to sit de die 
in diem. 

ON THURSDAY, 13™ 

{Page 398.) 

A petition of John Holland, of Brewood, in the county of Staf- 
ford, gentleman, was presented to the House and read, setting forth 
that John Asgill, Esquire, a Member of this House, being indebted 
to the petitioner was (after great trouble and expense both in England 
and Ireland for many years) taken in execution in Trinity Term last, 
when his privilege of Parliament was expired, and he is now in 
custody ; and there is no possible way for the petitioner ever to get any 
thing from him but by detaining his person; and praying that the 
House will not allow Mr. Asgill any privilege until he hath made the 
petitioner satisfaction for his debt. 

Ordered that the said petition do lie on the table until the report 
be made from the committee to whom the matter of the complaint of 
the said Mr. Asgill is referred. 

ON THE SATURDAY FOLLOWING. 

{Page 4OO.) 
Sir Henry Button Colt acquainted the House that the committee 
to whom the matter relating to Mr. Asgill (a Member of this House 



36 

in prison in tlie Fleet) was referred, liad directed liim to make a 
report thereof. When will the House be pleased to receive it ? 

Eesolved that the report be now received. 

Accordingly Sir Henry Button Colt reported the matter to the 
House ; and, afterwards, declared the same at the clerk's table, 
where the same was read, and is as foUoweth, viz. : 

That, the committee had examined the matter of the complaint, 
(and, also, searched for precedents); and, that, the case and precedents 
are as follows, viz. : 

That it appears upon examination of the High Bailiff and Keeper 
of the Gatehouse, Westminister, one Elderton, a Bailiff and the 
^Warden of the Fleet, that a warrant was sent from the Sheriff of 
Middlesex to the High Bailiff of Westminster, dated the 11th of 
June, 1707, for arresting the said Mr. Asgill at the suit of John Hol- 
land for £6,390 debt, and at the suit of John Tayler for £2,500 debt. 
That, pursuant to the said warrant, Mr. Asgill was arrested the 
12tli June aforesaid, by one Elderton, a bailiff to the said High 
Bailiff of Westminister, and by him detained till the 14tli day of 
said June, and then he delivered Mr. Asgill to the custody of the 
Gatehouse prison, charged in execution at the suit of the said John 
Holland and John Tayler. That the said Mr Asgill, 23d October, 
1707, was removed by Habeas Corpus from the Gatehouse to the 
prison of the Fleet, then charged with actions upon mesne process 
at several persons' suits in the sum of £2,284, and on executions in 
the sum of £9,890, as by the original return annexed to the said writ 
of Habeas Corpus appeared. 

Then the- committee proceeded to search for the precedents 
of the methods of proceedings which this House has used in cases 
of privilege, and the method of freeing their Members under arrests, 
which, in point of time as they stand upon the journals of the 
House, are, viz. : 

The first precedent is the case of Sir Thomas Shirley, in 10 
Jacobi, as follows, viz. : 

Being a Member of the House, he was arrested. But the House 
resolved that he should have his privilege; and, when the goaler 



37 

refused to surrender him, the King himself interfered, and Sir 
Thomas was brought into the House. 

The second case was that of Sir William Bamfield, who was in 
like manner liberated, and brought into his place in the House. 

The third precedent was Sir John Prettyman's case, who was also 
liberated. 

The fourth precedent was Sir Robt. Holt's case, who was, also, 
liberated. 

On which it was ordered that the report be taken into considera- 
tion on Monday morning next. 

{Seepage 440) 

On that day the order of the day being read for taking into con- 
sideration the report relating to Mr. Asgill (a Member of this House) 
in prison in the Fleet : 

Ordered that the Sergeant -at-arms attending this House do go 
with the Mace into Westminster Hall and the Courts there, and 
Courts of Requests and places adjacent, and summon the Members 
there to attend the service of the House. 

And he went accordingly ; 

And being returned, 

The report relating to the said Mr. Asgill was read. 

Ordered that the report be recommitted. 

The House being informed of a printed book or pamphlet signed 
J. Asgill, intituled, " An argument proving that, according to the Cov- 
enant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures, man may be trans- 
lated into that eternal life without passing through death, although 
the human nature of Christ himself could not be thus translated until 
he passed through death," several paragraphs whereof are contrary 
to and reflecting upon the Christian religion: 

The book was brought up to the clerk's table, and the title and 
several paragraphs therein read. 

Ordered that it be referred to a committee to inquire into the 
Author of the said book. 



./ 



38 

And it is referred to Mr. Harley, Mr. Jervoise, Lord Powlett, Mr. 
King, Sir Humphrey Mackwortli, Sir Thomas Littleton, Mr. Plump- 
tree, Mr. Rowney, Mr. Manley, Mr. Trotman, Sir John Spencer, 
Mr. Bridges, Mr. Morgan, Sir Charles Turner, Mr. Montgomery, 
Mr. Southwell, Mr. Erskin, Mr. Bennett, Mr. Bromley, Sir John 
Erskin, Sir Henry Gough, Mr. Wentworth, Sir John Mordant, 
Sir Henry Dutton Colt, Sir Wm. Whitlock, Sir Edward Turner, 
Sir Richard How, Sir Thomas Burnet, Mr. Ward, Mr. Sharp, Mr. 
Windsor, Sir Wm. Drake, Mr. Annesley, Mr. Brydges, Mr. Conyers, 
Mr. Coesar, Mr. Powlett, and they are to meet in the Speaker's 
Chamber, and to sit de die in diem, and to have power to send for 
papers, persons and records. 

ON WEDNESDAY, 26^2 NOV. 1707. 

Mr. Harley reported from the committee who are to examine who 
is the author of the book intituled " An Argument proving that 
according to the Covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures, 
man may be translated from hence into that eternal life, without 
passing through death, although the human nature of Christ himself 
could not be so translated till he had passed through death," that 
they had directed him to move that it may also be inquired into who 
was the printer and publisher of the said book; and may also report 
what passages are therein that are contrary to and reflecting upon 
the Christian Religion. 

Ordered that the said committee do examine accordingly. 

{PageUO.) 

ON THE NEXT DAY, THURSDAY, 27'^.^ NOV. 

Mr. Speaker acquainted the House that he had received a letter 

from Mr. Asgill in relation to the book under examination, and the 

same was read and is as followeth, viz.: 

Fleet, Nov, 26, 1707. 
Sir: 

Observing your votes for enquiring into the author of a book 

signed with my name, I think it my duty to prevent the House loss 

of time in that enquiry. What I wrote I am ready to produce and 

recognize whenever the House please to admit me to answer it in any 

place, and not doubting but they will adjudge my right to that 



39 

admission. I hope they will please to respite any further censure 

upon it till then. 

Sir, 

Your most humble servant, 

JOHN ASGILL. 
To the Right Honourable 

John Smith, Esquire, 

Speaker of the House of Commons. 

Ordered that the said letter do lie upon the table until the report 
be made from the committee to whom the said book is referred. 

[Afterwards there was much procrastination of the subject, but 
after several postponements.] 

ON TUESDAY DEC. 16^.^ 

The House (according to order) proceeded to take into consideration 
the report of the committee, to whom a former report was recom- 
mitted, who were appointed to examine the matter of the complaint 
of John Asgill, Esquire, a Member of this House, that he was detained 
from attending the service of the House, and who were to search 
precedents what hath been done for discharging any Members 
imprisoned upon execution and mesne process. And the report was 
read and is as follows, viz. : [The report, which follows, runs through 
the large folio pages of the 15th volume, 467, 468, 469, and the greater 
part of 470,] and, when it was read, it was 

Resolved, that, John Asgill, Esquire, (delayed a prisoner in the 
Fleet), ought to have the privilege of the House as a Member thereof. 

Resolved, that John Asgill, Esquire, be delivered out of the 
custody of the Warden of the Fleet, to attend the service of this 
House. 

Resolved, that John Asgill, Esquire, be delivered from such 
custody, by sending the Sergeant-at- Arms, attending this House with 
the Mace, to bring him up to the service of this House. 

Resolved, that the House will, upon Monday morning next, take 
into consideration the report from the committee who were to 
examine who was the author, printer and publisher of a book 



4Q 

eiftituled ''An argament proving tliat according to the Covenant of 
Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures, man may be translated 
from hence into that eternal life without passing through death, 
although the human nature of Christ himself could not be so 
translated till he passed through death." And then the House 
adjourned. 

{Page 470.) 

ON THURSDAY, 18™ DECEMBER. 

The House proceeded to take into consideration the report of the 
committee to whom was referred to examine who was the author, 
printer and publisher of a book entituled ''An argument proving 
that according to the Covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the 
Scriptures, man may be translated from hence into that eternal life 
without passing through death, although the human nature of 
Christ himself could not be so translated till he had passed through 
death," and to report such passages as are contrary to and reflect- 
ing upon the Christian religion. 

And the report was read, and is as followeth: 

" That, the committee having summoned several persons before 
them, in order to the discovery of the author, printer and publisher 
of said book, 

Mr. John Darby, a printer, said, that, he was sent for this morning 
by Mr. Asgill, and when he came to him, Mr. Asgill was writing a 
letter which, when he had finished, he read over to him, and then 
enclosed it in one of the second impressions of his book and desired 
him to deliver the same to the chairman of this committee. 

Which letter was read to this committee, and is marked A. 

The said Darby said, that, he printed the first impression of the 
book inclosed in the said letter, having the copy from Mr. Asgill, t'o 
whom he gave no consideration for it, but that what books Mr. 
Asgill had he paid for ; and that Mrs. Abigail Baldwyn published 
the said book for him. 

Robert Stevens, the messenger to the press, said, upon sight of 
one of the said books, that Mr. John Darby was the printer, and Mrs. 
Abigail Baldwyn was the publisher thereof. 



41 

Tlien the committee took into consideration what passages are 
used in said book contrary to and reflecting upon tlie Cliristian 
religion; which they find to be as followeth, viz : 

Page 7th* ' Now the assertion of Christ concerning himself was 
that man by him may live forever. And this is that magnetick 
which hath drawn all the world after him.' 

Page Stli:^ ' Now if these words of his are words only, then was 
he an impostor and his doctrine is false. 

' But if this assertion of himself be true, that, man by him may 
live forever, then all our attempts beneath this are mean and 
cowardly, as counting ourselves unworthy of eternal life.' 

Page 2JftliX ' Such was the death of Christ, without a precedent, 
without a name, without a reason, without a cause: ' They hated me 
without a cause.' But they were all against him because God was 
against him.' 

Page 3oth. 1 ' Had Christ thus become man, and died, and rose 
again, all voluntarily to try an experiment, he had only saved his 
own life, and left all the world to shift for themselves. 

' But this would have been Knight-errantry in tempting God — 
against which he hath sufficiently declared himself.' 

Page 36t]i.% ' The Devil told Eve, that, they might eat, and not 
die. 

' And these were the first words spoken to man by God or the 
Devil; upon the truth or falsehood whereof the very Beings of them 
both were to depend forever: for which ever of them could maintain 
the truth of his word against the other, he must have been God, and 
the other the Devil. 

' And, therefore, God having turned the lie upon the Devil, he is 
from thence called a liar from the beginning, and the father of it, and 
will never be believed again forever. 

' God could not have dispensed with his word without compli- 
menting the Devil with his Godhead in taking the lie upon him- 
self. And this he could not do — for God cannot lie without undeify- 
ing himself; and this he can't do, because all his qualities being of his 
essence he can't change them.' 



' In this volume the folios are necessarily different in arrangement from the 
original work; they ivill be found on reference pages *62, -[62, X72, \\78, %78. 



42 

Page 51st.* 'And after that it was no matter to man whether 
Christ had ever given satisfaction to God or not. We might have 
said to God, Look thou to that.' 

Page 78th.'^' ' We don't think ourselves fit to deal with one another 
in human affairs till our age of one-and-twenty. But to deal with 
our Maker thus offended, to counter-plot the malice of fallen angels, 
and to rescue ourselves from eternal ruin, we are generally as well 
qualified for before we can speak plain as all our life time after.' 

Page 82. X ' But what is it that you do, or would believe of him, 
or in him?* 

' Why, we 'believe him for our Sa/oiour.' 

' Save you from what ? ' 

' Why ! from our sins.' 

* Why, what hurt will sin do you ? ' 

' Why, it will kill us." 

' How do you know ? ' 

' Why, the law of God saith so : ' In the day thou eat est thereof 
thou shalt die I ' ' 

' Why, but then will not the Saviour save you from this law, and 
from this death ?' 

' No, no. He'll save us from sinf 

' Why then it seems you've got a pardon for horse stealing, with 
a noil obstante to be hanged.' 

' Do but see now, what a jest you have made of your faith. And 
yet I defy the order of priesthood to form a better creed than this, 
without admitting the truth of my argument; or to make sense of 
their own faith without adding mine to it. 

It is much easier to make a creed, than to believe it after it is made.' 

Page 95.% ' But when that is done, I know no business I have 
with the dead ; and, therefore, do as much depend that I shall not go 
hence by returning to the dust — which is the sentence of that law 
from which I claim a discharge — but that I shall make my exit by 
way of translation, which I claim as a dignity belonging to that 
degree of the science of eternal life, of which I profess myself a 
graduate, according to the true meaning and intent of the covenant 
of eternal life revealed in the Scriptures. 



See Images ^^83, iOO, t99, %109. 



4;5 

And if, after tliis, I die like other men, I declare myself to die of 
no religion.' 

Page 98. \ ' Therefore, to be even with the world at once, he that 
wonders at my faith, I wonder at his unbelief.' 

' And, stare at me as long as you will, I am sure that neither my 
physiognomy, sins, nor misfortunes, can make me so unlikely to be 
translated as my Redeemer was to be hanged.' " 

Then John Asgill, Esquire, was heard in his place in relation to 
the said report concerning the said book.*! 

And the title of the said book was read. 

Resolved, that in the book intituled, "An argument proving that 
according to the Covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures, 
man may be translated from hence into that eternal life without 
passing through death, although the human nature of Christ himself 
could not be thus translated till he had passed through death," are 
contained many profane and blasphemous expressions highly reflect- 
ing upon the Christian Religion. 

Ordered, that the said book be burnt by the hands of the common 
hangman, in the new Palace yard, Westminster, upon Saturday 
next, between the hours of 12 and 1, and that the Sheriffs of London 
and Middlesex do assist the Sergeant-at-arms attending this House 
in seeing the same done. 

A motion being made, and the question being put, that the House 
be adjourned till to-morrow morning, at 9 o'clock. 

The House divided. 

The noes go forth. 

Tellers for the yeas, i^'"^ Henry Button Colt, ^ .... 109. 
(Mr. Duckett, ) 

Tellers for the noes, -l^^'-^''<'^™^°'[ 165. 

( Mr. Heme, ) 

So it passed in the negative. 

Ordered that the caudles be brought in: 

And they were brought in accordingly. 



!i See folio 112. ^ Fo7' report of Asgill' s si^eech in defence, see page ho. 



44 

Kesolved, tliat, Jolm Asgill, Esquire, liaving in liis place owned 
himself to be author of the said book, be expelled this House. 

{Page ^76). 

FRIDAY, 19T?DEC., 1707. 

Ordered, that Mr. Speaker do issue his warrant to the Clerk of the 
Crown to make out a new writ for electing a Burgess to serve in the 
present Parliament for the Borough of Bramber, in the County of 
Sussex, in the room of John Asgill, Esquire, expelled this House. 



G^s^^y^ 



45 



MR. ASGILL'S 

DEFENCE OF HIS "ARGUMENT." 
BEFORE THE ENGLISH HOUSE OF COMMOiNS. 




}\R. Speaker: 

This day calls on me for something I am both inapt and 
I averse io, preaching. I appeal to my conversation whether 
I used to make that the subject of my discourse. Having 
been asked, more than twice, by friends and foes, how such a thing 
could come into my head ? I have intended, as far as I can, to make 
as candid a narrative as I can of the historical part of this production. 
How it came into my head : I thank God I had a religious education 
by honest parents, from whom I early learnt the letter of the 
Scripture. 

But, about the time of my admission to the bar, I met with a 
great loss from an adventure which I made with an intent to have 
raised my fortune. This compelled me to a voluntary confinement 
to my chamber in the Temple for some years; where, with some 
books of the law, I had a book of Law and Gospel — both of which 
they call the Bible. And upon some reviews of it, I observed 
several things which I had not before. And more especially that 
particular text from whence I traced out this argument as warranted 
from it — as I really did and do believe : 

" I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, 
though he were dead, yet shall he live: and he that liveth and 
believeth in me shall never die." 

And thus this thought first '' came into my head.^* 



4(3 

/ I was long afraid of my own tliouglits, lest they were my own 
only, and as such a delusion. However, I began to try them with 
pen, ink and paper. And thinking, as I wrote, that they seemed 
plainer and plainer every time I went over them, I resolved to form 
them into an argument, to see how they would bear upon the proof: 
till at last I had transcribed what I am now accused of. But writing 
an ill hand, I resolved, as a further experiment, to see how what I had 
wrote would look in print. On this, I gave the printer my copy, with 
money for his own labor, to print off some few for myself, and keep 
the press secret. But, I remember, before he got half way through, 
he told me his men fancied I was " a little crazed." In which, I also 
fancy, he spoke one word for them and two for himself. However, I bid 
him go on. And at last, it had so raised his fancy, that, he desired my 
leave to print off one edition at his own risk — saying, he thought some 
of the Anabaptists would believe it first, or some such word. Being 
just then going to Ireland, I permitted him, with this injunction, 
that he should not publish them till I was clear out of Middlesex. 
Which I believe he might have observed: though, by what I heard 
afterwards, they were all about town by the time I got to St. Albans — 
and the book was in Ireland almost as soon as I was, with a noise 
\after me that I was '' gone away mad." \ And there I received the 
first rebukes of my friends, and, amongst the rest, that it would 
prevent my practice. But, as it really happened, I think it promoted 
it. For people coming into court to see me as a monster, and hearing 
me talk like a man, I soon fell into my share of practice. But 
having laid out my acquisitions in a purchase, and being chosen a 
Member of that House of Commons, and the session being began 
while I was in Munster, I met the news on the road that my book 
was burnt by the order of the House. Then I knew all the rest. 
However, I took the oath and my place in the House till I was 
expelled in four days. And about four days after a petition was 
delivered to the House against me, as having purchased Lord Ken- 
mare's forfeited estate (with my own money) for some other people. 
But they could not tell who, and so their petition was rejected, and 
their evidence laughed at. But by this I found that I was not 
expelled the House for my book, but for my bargain, which some 
thought too good for me; good or bad, I bought it fairly, and got the 



money honestly. But I can observe some of the same persons that 
had a hand in that petition now are soliciting in your lobby, with my 
book about them. Thus have I traced it into my head, and out of my 
head, and into Ireland, and back again into your lobby. And how it 
came into this House, and just at this time too, your worthy chair- 
man knows best. 

This is now the fourth Parliament in which I have had the 
honour to be a Member of this House with that gentleman, since I 
published this argument, which hath not remained a secret. However 
that be, I am now called on to answer. And I do acknowledge the 
justice and candor of this House in admitting me to that defence 
before they proceed to any further censure than the report of the 
committee. Which is what I was prevented to do in another House, 
who having condemned and executed the book without hearing me, 
there was nothing left between that and my expulsion but to prove 
me the author. Which no one can think I intended to disown, when I 
had published it with my name to it. Yet, as it happened, I then had 
an opportunity to put them to the proof of it. The printer, having 
sold off his first edition, broke up the press, and the demand for 
more putting him to the production of a second, he committed in 
that above thirty erratas from the first. My accuser in Ireland, 
having one of this second edition in his hand, demanded of me a 
categorical answer, wliether I icas the author f To which I replied, 
that, I was author of a treatise upon that argument, and that, if I 
must be categorical, what he showed me was not a print of my copy; 
and, therefore, since he accused me of a crime higher than high 
treason — blasphemy, I did demand it as justice of the House that 
they would not admit less evidence to convict me of this crime than 
if I stood indicted for high treason. Upon this stood up two 
volunteer evidences. The first was a gentleman of the law, at 
whose house I dined at my first coming to Ireland, about three 
years before — where I never was either before or after — and his 
evidence was, " that there was some jocular discourse about a hook.'" 
The other was a Member, with whom I had a suit at law, and his 
evidence was, that, "I had turned about upon r}iy heel, and said 'I had 
wrote a book, and did not care who knew it.''' And upon this evi- 
dence I was expelled that House for blasphemy ! However, I find the 



48 

report of tlie committee, now before me, is not levelled at the 
argument itself wliicli I have advanced, nor yet at the treatise vrhich 
I published to prove it, but against some expressions which I have 
used in the proof, and to which I intend to give particular answers. 

But there is something else laid to my charge of a higher 
concern to me — as if I had wrote it with a malicious intention to expose 
the Scriptures as false, because they seemed to contain what I 
asserted, and that if that assertion did not hold truth the Scripture 
must be false. Now whether this was my intention or not there is 
but one witness in heaven or earth can prove, and that is He that 
made me, and in whose presence I now stand, and who is able to 
strike me dead in my place. And to Him I now appeal for the truth 
of what I protest against: that, I never did write or publish that 
argument or treatise with any intention to expose the Scriptures. 
But, on the contrary, though I was aware that I might be liable to 
that censure, and which I knew not how to avoid^Fl did both write 
I and publish it under a firm belief of the truth of tKe"Scriptures, and 
with a belief (under that) that what I have asserted in that argument is 
within that trutli. / And if it be not, then I am mistaken in my 
argument; and the Scripture remains true. Let Grod be true, and 
every man a liar. And having made this protestation, I am not much 
concerned whether I am believed in it or not. I had rather tell a 
truth than be believed in a lie at any time. But 'tis time for me to 
come to the report itself. And I do own that in that treatise I have 
used some familiar expressions of common things. This I did with 
intent to be sooner read and more readily understood. Men of the 
world being in this thing like children, most affected with what is 
spoken in their own dialect. Hence, Paul excuseth himself not only 
for common, but rude expressions: ^' I am rude in speech, but I speak 
after the manner of men." And having thus guarded myself by this 
general protection, I will go over every paragraph in the report, and 
give some particular answer to what I apprehend to be the exceptions 
taken to them. 

The first paragrapli excepted to is in page 7;* 

" Now the assertion of Christ concerning himself was, that man 
by him may live forever. And this is that magnetick which hath 
drawn the world after him. " 

* Page 62 of this 'volu7ne. 



40 

Now, had the worthy chairman but taken in the two next para- 
graphs he would have found an instance of what I said in our 
Saviour's own disciples, who, when he asked them whether they 
also would leave him ? for reply, they asked him, again, '' whither 
shall we go ? Thou hast the words of eternal life.'' 

The second is in page 8r' 

'' Xow if these words of his are words only, then was he an impos- 
tor, and his doctrine is false. But if this assertion of himself he true, 
that man by him may live forever: then all our attempts beneath this 
are mean and cowardly, as counting ourselves unworthy of eternal 
life." 

Answer — From whence the worthy chairman was pleased to say 
that I called our Saviour an impostor ; whereas, what I said was, 
that if our Saviour's words were not true, they were false. And I 
insisted that they were true — the whole drift of my argument was 
that we should depend on his word as true. 

The third is in page f^.'t 

" Sach was the death of Christ — without a precedent, without a 
name, without a reason, without a cause: ' They hated me without a 
cause.' But they were all against him because Grod was against him." 

Here I must apply the objection to the last clause, " They were 
all against him, because Grod was against him." 

Ansicer — Xow, if this saying wants any explanation from me, I 
did and I do mean it: that the will of Grod was so determined and 
resolved on the offering up of the eternal sacrifice of his own Son 
as a ransom for the world, that all the power in heaven and earth 
could not oppose it: '' Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from 
me." But, it is evident, it was not his will, for the cup did not pass 
from him. And if this evidence will not suffice the worthy chair- 
man without an express statement that Grod was against his Son, 
I can quote him two in one text : " Awake O, sword, against my 
shepherd, and against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of 
Hosts." Xow I leave it to the worthy chairman to find out another 
fellow for the Lord of Hosts but that Emmanuel, and if he cannot, 
then I have proved the assertion that " God was against him." 



See folios *62, t'/^. 



50 

The fourth is in page SO:'^' 

*' Men charge God as a humorist U. e. trijler) for condemning the 
whole race of mankind for so small an offence as eating a little 
forbidden fruit." 

Here the objection seems to be to the word humorist. As to that, 
I am not setting up for an informer, nor did I ever hear any man or 
woman call God a humorist — nor have I said that I did. But, follow- 
ing some men into their familiar conversations, we hear this sacred 
history of the fall treated as a romance rather than a sacred 
record — and in consequence, I have employed the word humorist; 
and I am justified, in that Paul used a harder expression than this: 
" The foolishness of God." In short, the Apostle finding men in their 
conversations treatiDg the sacrifices and ceremonies of the Mosaical 
law as trivial and insignificant things, and thence seeming to charge 
God with folly in commanding them, therefore, to answer them in 
their own language, he told them that what they thought foolish- 
ness was wiser than all their wisdom: " The foolishness of God is 
wiser than the wisdom of man." And I, to imitate Paul in the best 
way I could, and turn the fool upon man, spoke as I did: ''That, 
according to the laws of honour and gratitude, the lighter the thing 
demanded is, the greater the affront in refusing it." 

But, by cutting text and paragraphs into two, the worthy chair- 
man might have charged the penmen of the Scripture itself with 
blasphemy. 

The fifth is in page 35:-\ 

"Had Christ thus become man, and died, and rose again, all vol- 
untarily, to try an experiment, he had only saved his own life, and 
left all the world to shift for themselves But this would have 
been Knight-errantry in tempting God, against which he had suffi- 
cently declared himself." 

Now, I cannot conceive what is excepted to in this argument at 
least. So I must suppose it lies against the word " Knight-errantry.'" 
Which is the hazarding of a man's person, only to show his parts or 
actions to the spectators, without doing any good by it either to them 
or to himself. And a piece of knight-errantry of this sort was once 



See folios *7A, t7S. 



51 

proposed to our Saviour by the devil: *' If thou be the Son of (jod, 
cast thyself down; for it is written, ' He shall give his angels charge 
over thee, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone." But 
our Saviour convicted this to be false logic — as a false conclusion 
drawn from true premises. For that though Christ was the Son of God, 
and that what the devil had quoted of him from the Scripture was 
true, that, '' the angels had charge over him/' yet the conclusion was of 
the devil's own making — that he might, in confidence thereof, cast 
himself down headlong — and was false; which our Saviour proved 
by the quotation of another text : " It is written, again, ' Thou shalt 
not tempt the Lord thy God/ " 

Thus I have sufficiently proved that our Saviour declared himself 
against knight-errantry in tempting God. The expression itself is 
only an abstract in two words of w^hat would have required several 
lines to define at large. 

The sixth is in page 36 : X 

" God told Adam that, if he did eat, he should die. The Devil 
told Eve, that, they might eat, and not die. 

" And these were the first words spoken to man by God or the 
Devil ; upon the truth or falsehood whereof the very Beings of them 
both were to depend forever. For which ever of them could main- 
tain the truth of His word against the other, he must have been God, 
and the other the Devil. 

" And, therefore, God having turned the lie upon the Devil, he is 
from thence called a liar from the beginning, and the father of it, 
and will never be believed again for ever. 

" God could not have dispensed with his word without compli- 
menting the Devil with his God-head, in taking the lie upon himself ; 
and this he could not do :/<9r God cannot lie without undeifying him- 
self ; and this he can't do, because all his qualities being of his 
essence he can't change them." 

Answer — Now as to the fact of what God said to Adam, and the 
Devil to Eve, I had it out of Genesis. And all that I need descant 
upon it is no more than that God is true and cannot lie; and that 
he will not give his glory to another. A truth too plain to be called 
an argument. 

%8ee folio 78. 



The seventh is in pagedl."^' 

" And after that it was no matter to man whether Christ had ever 
given satisfaction to God or not; we might liave said to God, Look 
thou to that!' 

Answer — The argument here is, that, God having accepted Christ 
as a ransom for tlie world, man, according to tlie laws of ransom, was 
legally discharged from his captivity the very moment that the 
ransom was given in exchange ; and man, after that, could never by 
any law of reprizal be taken, whether the ransom had escaped, or 
not given God satisfaction. As to the words '' look thou to that," it 
might in the case have been said by one man to another. And God, 
in condescension to human understanding, permits man to use this 
kind of reasoning with him — saying, " Come now, and let us reason 
together." 

And he, elsewhere, declares his aversion to informers who watch 
for iniquity, and make a man ''an offender for a word." 

The eighth is in 'page 78 A 

"We don't think ourselves fit to deal with one another in human 
affairs till our age of one-and-twenty. But to deal with our Maker 
thus offended, to counter-plot the malice of fallen angels, and to res- 
cue ourselves from eternal ruin, we are generally as well qualified 
for before we can speak plain as all our life time after." 

Answer — I wish what I have here said was false; but I fear it is 
generally too true. And I have given my reason for the opinion in 
the next paragraph, viz.: " Children can say over their religion at 
four or five years old, and their parents who taught them can do no 
more at four or five-and-fifty." 

The ninth is in page 82. % 

'' ' This is a full description of the person in whom you place your 
faith. But what is it that you do, or would believe of him or in him ? ' 
" ' Why, toe believe him for our Saviour! 
" ' Save you ! from what ? ' 
" ' Why, from our Sins! 
" ' Why, what hurt will sin do you ? ' 
" ' Why, it will kill us.' 

See folios *S^\ fOG, t99. 



" ' How do you know ? ' 

" 'Why, the Imo of God said so : 'In the day thou eat est thereof 
thou shalt die.' 

<( ' Why, but then, will not this Saviour save you from this law, 
and from this death ? ' 

" ']}^o, no; he'll save us from'siii.' 

« ' Why then it seems you have got a pardon for horse-stealing, 
with a ri07i obstante to be hanged.' 

" ' Do but see now, what a jest you have made of your faith.' And 
yet I defy the Order of Priesthood to form a better Creed than this, 
without admitting the truth of my argument : or to make sense of 
their own faith without adding mine to it. It is much easier to make 
a creed, than to believe it after it is made." 

Answer— ^ow I have not insinuated anything against the com- 
mon creed of the Christian religion. I merely endeavor to raise it 
up to the fall. Believing that as the whole humanity fell in Adam, 
so the whole humanity would be raised in Christ. To expose the 
contrary, I have used an expression about horse-stealing that may, 
perhaps, seem rude. But, when we remember our Lord's comparing 
himself to a thief, C ' the Son of Man so cometh as a thief in the 
night,") that he might be more easily understood, I hope my express- 
ion of horse stealing, in order to be more easily understood, may 
not be accounted blasphemy. 

T7ie tenth is in ^^age 95.% 

" But when that is done, I know no business I have with the dead ; 
and, therefore, do as much depend that I shall not go hence by returning 
to the dust — which is the sentence of that law from which I claim a 
discharge — but that I shall ma^6 ony exit by im/y of translation, which 
I claim as a dignity belonging to that degree in the science of eter- 
nal life, of which I profess myself a Gfraduate, according to the true 
intent and meaning of the covenant of eternal life revealed in the 
Scriptures. And if, after this, I die like other men, I declare myself 
to die of no religion." 

Ansioer — What is here said in the first paragraphs grows out of 
my dependence on my argument as well grounded; and as to the 
last words (of which I have heard so much) that, if I am mistaken 

iSf& folio 109. 



54 

in this dependence, I sliall " die of no religion," I need not have said 
it. But better to say it, than think it and keep it secret. Bat that I 
said it with better hopes, the subsequent passages have explained. 
In the interim, I hope I live as a Christian; and if I am mistaken, I 
hope God will reveal even this to me. 

The eleventh and last is in 'page 98;^ (in a sort of postscript I added 
after my argument): 

'' Therefore, to be even with the world at once, he that wonders 
at my faith — I wonder at his unbelief. And stare at me as long as 
you will, I am sure that neither my physiognomy, sins, or misfortunes 
can make me so unlikely to be translated as my Redeemer was to be 
hanged." 

Answer — My accuser, in Ireland, singled out this last word as an 
instar omnicum of the blasphemy of all the rest: that I had reported 
our Saviour to be hanged ! And now I'll answer to this worthy 
chairman, that my Saviour was hanged I cannot deny without being 
ashamed of the Cross of Christ. Peter, indeed, hath added, on a 
tree: " Whom ye slew and hanged on a tree." 

Now if it be blasphemy to say our Saviour was hanged, I'll 
advance it a degree higher: that he was not only hanged, but that 
he must be hanged, or else he had not fulfilled the Scriptures. 
Indeed, the common expression as to the manner of his execution 
unto death is crucifixion — which was the pain; but that was done by 
a suspension also — which was the shame; in which shame was con- 
cluded the curse of the law which he was to undergo for us : " He 
was made a curse for us; for cursed is every one that hangeth on a 
tree." 

And as to my wondering at the unbelief of them that wonder at 
my faith, I cannot but wonder that a man should be expelled two 
House of Commons, in two Christian Kingdoms, for professing his 
faith in Jesus Christ according to the Scriptures. However, I 
must let that pass. But let me ask one question more : Pray what 
is this blasphemous crime I here stand charged with ? A belief of 
what we all profess, or at least of what no one can deny. If the 
death of the body be included in the fall, why is not the life of the body 

''See folio 112. 



included in tlie Redemption ? And if I have a firmer belief in this than 
another, am I therefore a Blasphemer? But it grows late, and I ask 
but one saying more to take leave of my friends with. I do believe 
that if I had turned this defence into a recantation, I should have pre- 
vented my expulsion. But I have reserved my last words as my 
ultimate reason against my recantation : He that dabes to write 

THAT BOOK, DAEES NOT DENY IT ! 



c-e^^)^ 



5' 



AN 



Argument 

Proving, 

That according to the Coveitant 
of Eternal Life revealed in the 
Scriptt'ires, Man may be Tranf- 
lated from hence into that Eternal 
Life, without paffing through 
Death, altho the Human Nature 
of CHRIST himself could not 
be thus tranflated till he had paff- 
ed through Death. 



Nee vanis credite verbis; 

Afficite en ! facuitq ; fidem Confpecfus. 



An7to Dom. i yoo. 



iM&i. 




mm- 



PREFACE, 



^10 THEM that knew not tlie reason, it looked like a whim 
^ for the man in the Gospel to walk about the streets with 
) his bed upon his back on the Sabbath-day, while the rest 
& Hii'fe) Qf ii^Q people were at their devotion. And, perhaps, it 
may seem more odd in me to bolt out an Argument in Divinity (as a 
bone of contention) into the world, at a time when the rest of man- 
kind are so deepl}" engaged in secular affairs. But he that regardeth 
the wind will never sow; and he that waiteth for times and seasons, 
will never do business. And as that seeming whimsical man said 
to them that reproved him, "He that made me whole, the same 
said unto me, 'Take up thy bed and walk:' " so say I to them that 
affront me, "He that revealed this unto me, the same bade me tell 
it abroad," as a watch-word to be given out from one to another 
(everj- man to his fellow) as fast as he receives it : " Let him that 
heareth say. Come! " 

And having thus delivered m}^ part of the Message, I look upon 
myself to have no more to do with it afterwards than you have. 

But, hereb}' I shall know whether this Doctrine be mine or no: 
If it be mine, it will sink, and fall and die; but if it be His that I 
think it is, it will kindle itself like a firebrand, from one to another, 
till it hath set the world in arms against Death. And, having thus 
left the decision of the truth of it to the success, I begin to feel 
myself more easy under it. And as the four leprous men said to 
one another in the Gate of Samaria: "If we sit here, we are sure 



60 

to die witli famine, and if we go into the camp of tlie Syrians, w& 
can but die by the sword:" so, I have said to myself, if I submit 
to death, I am sure to die; and if I oppose it, I can but be killed 
and die. And, should I be baffled in this essay, I can lose nothing 
by it, but that little credit with the world which I value not in 
comparison of this attempt. And as those four desperate men, ven- 
turing themselves upon this resolution, did, thereupon, find that they 
had been before more afraid than hurt: so, in making this sally 
against death, methinks I have discovered it to be rather a bugbear 
than an enemy. And, therefore, as they, having filled themselves 
with plunder, thought it their duty to go and tell the news to them 
that were ready to perish : so, I can't satisfy myself to eat my morsel 
alone, without communicating to them who, I, know, (with myself) 
must, by reason of death, be all their life-time subject to bondage. 
And as their glad tidings of plenty was nevertheless welcome to 
the King and People of Israel, for being brought to them by men 
poor and miserable : so, if my news be true in itself, why should it 
fare the worse for being told by the greatest of sinners ? And per- 
haps this qualifies me to be the Messenger, lest one more holy should 
seem to be honoured with it for his own personal sanctity. 

I remember a sudden retort once given me by a lady, to whom 
I excused this my emulation, by the example of Enoch: "But you 
are not so good as he was; for ' Enoch walked with God.' " And this 
might have puzzled me, had not Paul (in his List of Worthies) 
counted upon the Translation of Enoch as done by faith: " By faith 
Enoch was translated that he should not see death." Why, then, if 
I have as good a faith for this purpose as he had, I am in this point 
{quoad lioc) as good a man as he was, 'tho I fall short of him in all 
his other qualities. I^or is it to be expected that any Assembly of 
Divines should be emplo^^ed in such a business as this. They in- 
close themselves within the Pale of their own Church, and whoever 
breaks through that fence is prosecuted as a trespasser upon their 
jurisdiction. And thus the Jewish Priests excommunicated a lay- 
man for teaching them religion: " ' Thou wast altogether born in sin, 
and dost thou teach us? ' and they cast him out." 

But He that had opened his eyes, took him in. And such an ex- 
change I should reckon no great misfortune. 



61 

But is it uot a shame that this Enoch, in the beginning of time — 
so long before the receipt of the Promise — should attain to that Faith 
in Christ, which we, that have seen him crucified before our eyes, 
think a sin to offer at? 

But having been tempted to commit this sin, (like a true mother's 
child of ni}" grandparent Eve), I would tempt m}^ friends to do so too. 

And all I ask of them is this : 

H a vin^ ab stract e d jthe study of seven years recluse into less than 
two hou rs reading: , I onl}^ desire the perusal of it at a time of leisure, 
when men and women design to be serious, and think most of them- 
selves. And then I flatter myself that the}^ will find it not the most 
unpleasant hour that ever the}^ spent in their life. 

For this I know, that nothing is more pleasant to us than Xews; 
and what I have said, was never said b}^ man before. 

And this I know, that (notwithstanding the defection of our 
natures) nothing is more pleasant to man than truth, i^nd what I 
have said is true: and a truth that all the gainsay ers shall not be 
able to resist. 'Tho it be in contradiction to the most received truth 
in the world, that " all men must die." 



^Q^^SH 



62 




An Argument provmg, That ac- 
cording to the Covenant of Eternal 
Life revealed in the Scriptures, Man 
may be Traitjlatedfrom hence into 
that Rtemal Life, (jxc. 



' JSfTE oMtum felix nemo^ supremaque fata^ is a "fiction of 
^ Poets. 

[^▼|j And that old motto, (worn upon tombstones), "Death is 
the Gate of Life^^^ is a lie! by wliicli men decoy one another 
into death ; taking it to be a thoroughfare into Eternal Life. Whereas, 
it is just so far out of the way. 

For die when we will, and be buried when we will, and lie in 
the grave as long as we will, we must all return from thence and 
stand again upon the earth before we can ascend into the Heavens. 
Hinc itur ad astra. 

Now the assertion of Christ concerning himself was, "That man 
by him may live for ever." 

And this is that magnetick [attraction] which hath drawn the 
world after him. 

For as he said to us, "Except your righteousness exceed the 
righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter 
into the Kingdom of God: " so, we ma}^ say of him, except his words 
exceed the words of common men, what ^should we follow him for ? 

And thus, w^hen he asked his Disciples if they would leave him, 
they asked him again, "Whither shall we go ? Thou hast the words 
of Eternal Life;" which no one else pretends to. 

]^ow if these words of his are words only, then was he an Im- 
postor, and his doctrine is false I 



But if this assertion of himself be true, '' That man b}- him may 
live forever," then all our attempts beneath this are mean and 
cowardly, as counting ourselves unworthy of Eternal Life. 

The objection made against him when he affirmed it was, " The 
custom of the world to the contrary, Abraham is dead, the Pro- 
phets are dead; whom makest thou thyself to be ? ' " 

And I am not unaware that this custom of the world to die, hath 
gained such a prevalency over our minds, b}^ prepossessing us of the 
necessity of death, that it stands ready to swallow my argument 
whole without digesting it. 

For if the custom of bondage derived upon man but for a few 
generations, doth so inure him to subjection, that he thinks it jure 
(Udiio, and all attempts against it to be rebellion: 

How much more may I expect that this attempt against death 
(which hath had so much a longer possession over man) Avill be 
accounted madness I 

But as a learned man said, " That the pride of women comes 
from the baseness of men ; and the courage of cowards from others 
more cowards: " So I may say, that the dominion of death is sup- 
ported by our fear of it, by which it hath bullied the world to this 
day. 

And, therefore, before I fall upon the direct proof of my argu- 
ment, I'll offer an answer to the custom of the world against me. 

Custom itself, without a reason for it, is an argument only to 
fools. 

Xor can the life or death of one man be assigned as the cause of 
the life or death of another, unless the same thing happen to them 
both. 

"Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead." What then ? 

Why, Abraham died of age, (as the folk call it), he gave up the 
ghost, being an old man and full of years. 

And the prophets were many of them knocked on the head: " Ye 
have stoned the prophets." 

Must it, therefore, follow that either of these deaths must happen 
to me, or that because they died of one death, I must die of another? 

Suppose my mother died in childbed; must I, therefore, do so too? 
Or, that my father was hanged; must I, therefore, be drowned? 



64 

Abraham is dead, and the prophets are dead. What then? 
Why Abraham had a son of his own begetting at a hundred 
years okl, upon a woman of ninet}^; liad an army of men born in 
his own house; flocks and herds witliout number, and a whole 
country of his own to feed them in. And the prophets were favor- 
ites of heaven, could raise the dead and kill the living. Must there- 
fore any of these gifts happen to me? Why then, if I must not 
partake with Abraham and the prophets in their blessings, why 
must I partake with them in their deaths ? 

Nor did Abraham die, because the prophets died; nor did the 
prophets die, because Abraham died. 

Then if their deaths had no effects upon one another, why should 
they have any effect upon me? 

And as the life or death of one man, is no cause of the life or 
death of another; so the multitude of examples don't alter the 
case. 

The life or death of all the world except one man, can be no 
cause of the life or death of that one man. 

Almost this very case once happened in the world, when the 
flood destroyed all but eight persons ; and yet this was no argument 
that those eight must be drowned too ; nor was the preservation of 
them any argument for the preservation of the rest. 

We have heard of a hundred thousand men slain in battle; and 
yet this was no argument for the death of any other man who was 
not slain in it. 

Wherefore, the custom of the world to die, is no argument one 
way or other. 

But, because I know that custom itself is admitted as an evi- 
dence of title, upon presumption that this custom had once a reason- 
able commencement, and that this reason doth continue, therefore, 
it is incumbent upon me to answer this custom, by showing 

The time and reason of its commencement: and that this reason 
is determined. 

Which if I do show, then the bare custom of the world to die 
ought no longer to be admitted as a title against life. 

First then, I do admit the custom or possession of death over the 
world, to be as followeth, mz.: 



65 

That death did reign from Adam to Moses, b}^ an uninterrupted 
possession, over all men, women, and children, created or born, 
(except one breach made upon it in that time by Enoch). 

And hath reigned from Moses unto this day by the like uninter- 
rupted possession, (except one other breach made upon it in this 
time by Elijah.) 

And this is as strong a possession as can be alleged against me. 

To answer this, I must show, that- this custom or possession of 
death had a reasonable commencement, which was the original of it. 

To avoid this possession, I must show, that this reason is deter- 
mined; and that, therefore, this possession ought to be no longer 
admitted as a title against life. 

The religion of the world now is, that "Man is born to die." 
But from the beginning it was not so ; for man was made to live : 
God made not death till man brought it upon himself by his delin- 
quency. 

Adam stood as fair for life as death, and fairer too, because he 
was in the actual possession of life, as tenant thereof at the will of 
God; and had an opportunit}^ to have made that title perpetual by 
the tree of life, which stood before him, with the tree of knowledge 
of good and evil. 

And here 'tis observable how the same act of man is made the 
condition both of his life and death: 

Put forth thy hand, and pull, and eat, and die. Or, put forth 
thy hand, and pull, and eat, and live forever. 

So little doth God esteem the work of man in order to his own 
salvation. 

Lord Bacon, descanting upon the fall of man, expresses it 
thus: " That man made a total defection from God, presuming to 
imagine that the commandments and prohibitions of God were not 
the rules of Good and Evil, but that Good and Evil had their own 
principles and beginnings; and that man lusted after the knowledge 
of those imagined beginnings, to the end to depend no more upon 
God's will revealed, but upon himself and his own light as a god: 
than which there could not be a sin more opposite to the whole law 
of God." 

For 'tis not to be conceived that there was any physical virtue in 



either of these trees, whereby to cause life or death; but God having 
sanctified tliem by those two different names, he was obliged to 
make good his own characters of them, b}^ commanding the whole 
creation to act in such a manner as that man should feel the effects 
of this word, according to which of the trees he first put forth his 
hand. 

And it is yet more strange, that man having life and death set 
before him at the same time and place, and both to be had upon the 
same condition, that he should single out his own death, and leave 
the tree of life untouched. 

And what is further strange, even after his election of death, he 
had an interval of time before his expulsion out of Paradise to have 
retrieved his fate, b}^ putting forth his hand to the tree of life; and 
that yet he omitted this too. 

But by all this it is manifest that as the form or person of man, 
in his first creation, was capable of eternal life without dying; so 
the fall of man which happened to him after his creation, hath not 
disabled his person from that capacit}^ of eternal life. 

And, therefore, durst man, even then, have broken through the 
cherubim and flaming sword; or could he now, any way, come at the 
tree of life, he must yet live for ever, notwithstanding his sin com- 
mitted in Paradise, and Irs expulsion out of it. 

But this tree of life now seems lost to man. 

And so he remains under the curse of that other tree: " In the 
day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die." 

Which sentence of the law is the cause of the death of man, and 
was the commencement of the custom of death in the world as the 
original of it. 

And, by the force of this law, death hath kept the possession 
(before admitted) to this day. 

For 'tho this law w^as delivered to Adam before Eve was made, 
and in it there are no express words to bind her, or the issue begot- 
ten between them; yet it did not only bind him and her, and all 
their descendants, but even the whole creation under them; for 'tho 
this law was delivered to Adam in his single person, yet it was so 
delivered to him in his politic capacity as head of the whole Crea- 
tion, and the great trustee for them all. 



67 

And thus Adam understood it; for he had told it to Eve, (as a 
thing that concerned her as well as himself), of which she took 
notice, and repeated it to the serpent in the dialogue between them. 

And as Adam thus understood it, so God declared it immediately 
after the fall. 

"To the woman he said, ' I will greatl}^ multiply thy sorrow,' 
etc. To the man he said, ' Cursed be the ground for thy sake/ " etc. 

And God having thus explained himself, he immediatel}^ com- 
manded nature to turn upon man, to execute the sentence of this 
curse upon them. And under this command nature hath acted ever 
since, which is an inversion of it from its original institution. 

Mature was formed by a law superior to it, (which is called the 
law of the creation): "Let there be light, and there was light." And 
being thus made by a law, God immediately gave it another law to 
act hy; by which the earth watered itself, and brought forth fruit 
without the labor of man or beast. 

But upon man's delinquency, God superseded this course of 
nature, and put it under another law, whereby the whole creation 
stands inverted at this day. So that all these common events which 
now happen in the world, 'tho they are become natural according 
to nature thus inverted, yet from the beginning the}^ were not so. 

Death was a strange word to Adam; for 'tho he did understand 
it to be a determination of his being, yet he did not apprehend in 
what manner his being should be so determined, nor how he should 
make his exit out of the world, having never seen one example of it. 

And this made the sentence of death more terrible to them, 
because they did not know what God was going to pronounce 
against them. 

But God finding the man and his wife hid among the trees of the 
garden for fear of him, he hinted to them their redemption (by the 
seed of the woman) in the close of the curse against the serpent, 
before ever he came to denounce their own sentence against them; 
which supported them under the terror of it, and without which 
they had sunk down dead in the place. 

And thus, Christ (as he saith) is the life of the world, 'tho they 
don't know it. For had it not been for this, God had executed man 
in the fact, . 



6S 

Adam by this very act of delinquency, and the sentence upon 
it, stood attainted, and became a dead man in law, 'tho he was not 
executed till about nine hundred years afterwards; and during that 
interval he begat sons and daughters, and performed all other acts 
of life. 

From which it is observable, that, the change of a man's state, 
'tho it doth at one instant ascertain his fate one way or other, yet 
it doth not work so sudden a change in his person or affections. 

Eve after her eating, and Adam before his eating of the forbidden 
tree, were in two different states from one another— she in the state 
of death, and he in the state of life; and yet this did not presently 
change their affections one to another. Which put the case much 
harder upon him than it was before upon her. 

For she bj^ her very creation was made so much a part of him- 
self (from his passion of love to her) that he could not be happy 
while she was miserable : and hence, perhaps, we read of no other 
argument she used to him for breach of the command, tJian that 
she had done it before Mm. 

The violation of her happiness did so much affect him by a sym- 
pathy witli her, that all his other enjoyments could do him no good. 
And, therefore, since he thought it impossible for her to return into 
the same state with him, rather than be parted from her, he chose 
to hazard himself in the same state with her. 

The philosophers say, "man and woman are one creature in two 
pieces." And as such God gave them one common name before he 
made them, " Let us make Man, and let them have dominion," etc. 
And this is still retained as a common name to them both in all 
languages. But their offence was at last joint and several. 

Now the articles of the curse denounced against those our com- 
mon ancestors for this their offence is the law of death, and is the 
state under which the world stands at this day, and from which we 
can never be redeemed, but by being discharged from this law. 

The falling of which curse upon mankind, as descendants from 
those our common ancestors, is the foundation of all the laws of 
man in the like case. 

For that parents have power by their own acts to bind their issue 
before they are born, is the law of all the world : because every man 



69 

bath his heirs in him. And thus Levi is said to have been in the 
loins of his great grandfather, and to have paid tithes in him four 
generations before he was born. 

And thus all the descendants of Esau and Jacob are said to be in 
their mother's womb, while they were: " Two nations struggled in 
her womb." 

And that the birth of every man within an}^ country doth subject 
him to the laws of that country, is the law of all nations. 

And without these concessions there could be no laws; because 
else, every man must have a particular law delivered him for him- 
self: which being a public inconvenience, cannot be admitted in the 
nature of laws. 

And, thus, this law of death fell upon Christ himself, as a 
descendant from the same common ancestors. 

Christ had two descents in his birth: one was his natural 
descent from the Virgin Mary — his real mother. The other, his 
legal descent from Joseph — his supposed father. 

But in his genealog}' set down by two Evangelists, this legal 
descent by Joseph is onl}^ counted upon, without taking any notice 
of his descent by his mother's side: because this descent by Joseph 
was his legitimate descent, according to that law which makes all 
the issue of the woman born during the coverture, to be the issue of 
the husband; although it be notoriously known that, in fact, it were 
begotten by another. 

And this is our law at this day, although the issue be born but one 
da}^ after the espousals. And the Canon law is much stronger; for 
that makes the issue born of the woman before marriage (let them 
be begotten by whom she will, unless by a former husband in wed- 
lock) to be the issue of the husband to whom she is afterwards mar- 
ried. 

And, therefore, Christ having such a father in law as this, his 
descent must be accounted from his father in law, and not from his 
mother, because all legal descents are accounted from the father, 
and not from the mother. 

When the eleven tribes were polled in the wilderness of Sinai, 
they gave account of their pedigrees after their families, b}^ the 
house of their fathers, without taking any notice of their descent 



70 

by their mother's side. And so did they of the tribe of Levi, who 
were numbered after them. 

Wlierefore, I say, the business of the Evangelists being to show 
such a descent in Clirist, by which the curse of tlie law might fall 
upon him in his birth, the}^ must show a descent upon which the 
law might operate. For as this is a law, all proceedings thereupon 
are according to law. 

And hence it is observable, that his being born of a Virgin 
espoused, and not of a single Virgin, was not accidental, but 
designed: for as it was necessary that he should be born of a pure 
Virgin, to preserve his nature from the defilements of the humanity; 
so it was necessary that he should be born of a Virgin espoused, to 
derive upon himself the curse of the law b}^ a legal father. For 
which purpose it w^as necessary that the birth of Christ should (in 
the terms of the Evangelist) be on this wise, and no otherwise. 

And as tliis peculiar genealogy of Christ was not accidental, but 
designed, the quality of his descent was so too. 

There are mutual courtesies and civilities used among equals; but 
he that accepteth riches or honor from another, doth thereby ac- 
knowledge him to be his superior: "for the lesser is blessed of the 
greater." 

Wherefore, when Abraham had rescued the plunder taken from 
the Sodomites, he permitted the young men that fought with him to 
eat and drink of the provisions, and his three confederates that 
assisted him to take their portion of the goods; but for his own part, 
taking himself to be as good a man as the then King of Sodom, he 
scorned to accept from him thQ value of a shoe latchet, "lest it 
should be said he made Abraham rich." 

So, 'tlio Christ, in the days of his flesh, behaved himself with all 
the freedom of conversation — " The Son of Man came eating and 
drinking; " and when little Zacheus climbed up a tree to see him, he 
frankly invited himself to dine with him — yet, knowing himself 
to be the Son of God, he neither could nor w^ould receive any dig- 
nity from man: " I receive not honor from man." 

And thus, knowing his real descent to be from above — "I am 
from above " — it was equal to him to be reputed the son of a king or 
.a carpenter. 



71 

But he rather chose the latter, because being himself a king — " I 
am a King,'' — he would not accept his immediate descent from 
another king, lest it should be said that that made him king. 

David often vaunted of him as his descendant to come, twice 
fourteen generations before he was born. "And Abraham rejoiced 
to see this da}^" 

But he was so far from valuing himself upon these great ances- 
tors— one a king, and the other a king's fellow — that he rather seemed 
to disown them: " Before Abraham was, I am. If David called me 
Lord, how am I his son? " 

He made no other use of his royal pedigree but to convey by 
them a corrupted descent from Adam; who standing attainted of 
treason against heaven, Christ himself under this attainder was bap- 
tized in his own blood to restore the rest of mankind into the glori- 
ous liberty of the sons of God: for Christ himself, thus falling under 
the law, became as guilty of the breach of it as any common man, 
(notwithstanding his personal holiness.) 

For we are none of us guilt}^ of this sin in fact, but only by con- 
struction of law in the article of our birth, which falls upon us 
before we know good or evil; and so it did upon the humanity of 
Christ. 

And this law, thus falling upon him, was as just a cause of his 
death as it is of ours. Nor can his death be assigned to an}^ other 
cause but this. 

This death of Christ was the most unlikely thing that ever hap- 
pened in the world. His Disciples could not believe it till they saw it. 

He did not die of age, being about thirty -three at his death. 

He did not die of natural infirmity, having the power of health, 
by which he preserved his own, and restored others. 

He did not die in battle: for his kingdom w^as not of this world; 
else would his servants have fought that he should not have been 
delivered unto the Jews. 

He did not die b}^ any sudden accident: "the angels having 
charge over him, lest he should dash his foot against a stone." 

He did not murder himself, but made all his efforts to escape; 
the greatest of which was his asking his life of God. ISTor w^as he 
murdered b}^ others, because there was a form of law in doing it. 



72 

And yet he was not executed by law; because there was no law 
then in being by which he could be executed for the crime of which 
he stood accused. 

The time that Christ lived in the world was after the destruction 
of the Jewish monarchy, and during the continuance of the Roman 
conquest, under which the Jewish nation, being then subjects, were 
permitted the exercise of their religion and priesthood, but not of 
the civil power which they had while their monarch}^ was in being. 

So that if a Jew had committed any offence against the Jewish 
law, which was not an offence against the Roman law, he was liable 
to no other punishment than the censure of the Jewish church. 

And this was the case of Christ. He, being of the Jewish nation, 
was accused of blasphemy, which was death by their law; but being 
not so by the Roman law, the priests were at a loss how to get a for- 
mal sentence against him. 

And, therefore, when Pilate first demanded of them his accusation, 
they gave for answer, "Were he not a malefactor, we would not 
have delivered him unto thee;" expecting to have had him con- 
demned upon their honor: having, indeed, brought him in such a 
pickle as would have half -hanged any man upon the view. 

But we know Pilate's reply to that, and to their accusation when 
they offered it. 

And considering (in the sequel of the history) the warning sent 
to Pilate by a message from heaven, his own inclinations to obey it, 
and the former affections of the people towards hini, who had their 
election to redeem him against a common rogue, it seemed impossi- 
ble that he should have been executed. 

Who can assign the cause why Herod and Pilate, Jews and 
Romans, Priests and People (who were each at odds with one 
another in other matters) should all fall in together to condemn 
innocent blood? That the most exact worshipper of God should be 
accused for a blasphemer! That he that refused to be a king, 
should be arraigned for a traitor ! 

Such was the death of Christ — without a precedent, without a 
name, without a reason, without a cause : ' ' They hated me without 
a cause." But they were all against him, because God w^as against 
him. 



73 

And this he told Pilate, without which he declared he would not 
have surrendered himself: " Wot ye not, that I can even now call 
to my Heavenly Father, and he shall send me more than twelve 
legions of angels; but how then shall the scripture be fulfilled?" 

His hands were bound, and his feet were in the stocks, that lie 
was not at libert}'' to defend himself; being fallen under that law 
which necessitated him to die. And thus his death is exclaimed as 
equally miraculous with his birth. He was wonderful in his death, 
like Moses: and who can declare his generation? 

All other causes of death are but second causes, which may or 
may not happen, and against which a man may make his defence. 
But this general law of death is a flail, against which there is no 
defence; for if one execution don't reach us, another will: " They 
that remain of the pestilence shall the sword devour, and they 
that escape the sword shall be consumed with famine." 

Whatever is the immediate cause, is but the executioner to the 
first command. It was Joab that set Uriah in the front of the battle, 
and the Ammonites that slew him; but it was David that killed him: 
" Tliou hast killed Uriah the Hittite, and hast slain him with the 
sword of the children of Ammon." 

And having thus shown how this law (which was the com- 
mencement of the possession of death over the world) did descend 
and fall upon Christ, and was the cause of his death, it is next 
incumbent upon me to show : 

That this law is taken away by His death; and, consequently, that 
the long possession of death over the world can be no longer a title 
against life. 

But, when I say this law is taken away, I don't mean that the 
words of it are taken away — for they remain with us to this day, and 
being matter of record must remain forever — but that it is satisfied 
by other matter of record, by which the force of it is gone. 

And I call that law taken away which is satisfied. Law satisfied 
is no law; as a debt satisfied is no debt. 

Now the specific demand of the law was death: and the death 
of a man : and the death of a man made under the law. 

And, therefore, Christ, to qualify himself for this undertaking, 
became man in the manner and form before mentioned; for had he 



74 

assumed the human nature by any other entrance into it, he had not 
come under the law; and, therefore, could not have been put to 
answer it: for Avhat the law says, it says to them that are under it. 

And, hence, the genealogy of Christ is a fundamental part of 
eternal life. 

For Christ had visited the w^orld once before under the name of 
Melchisedeck; but not then making his entrance by a father or 
mother, but assuming the humanity immediately, (like the appear- 
ances of angels), the law could not reach him for want of a legal 
genealogy from Adam, by which it might attaint him; and, therefore, 
he then returned to Heaven without hurt, (as several appearances of 
angels in the forms of men had done before him.) 

But in his coming in the flesh, pursuant to this covenant of eter- 
nal life, he took not on him the nature of angels, but the seed of 
Abraham. 

And having thus qualified himself to be a subject to the law, he 
as such did suffer under it by his death; by which he performed the 
literal sentence of the law: " In the day thou eatest thereof thou 
shalt die." Which yet he might have done, and not have given the 
law satisfaction; for millions of men before him had undergone the 
literal sentence of the law by dying under it, and yet the law was 
nevertheless dissatisfied with them and others. 

But he declared *'It is finished," before he gave up the ghost. 

And this is the difference between his death and ours: man dies 
under the execution of the law, before he can give satisfaction to 
the justice of it; but this Son of Man gave satisfaction to the justice 
of the law before the extremity of the execution could reach him. 

And this he did by the dignit}^ of his person; for this law was 
not such a civil contract that the breach of it could be satisfied with 
money; but it was a law of honor, the breach whereof required 
personal satisfaction for the most impudent affront, and the highest 
act of ingratitude to God 

Men charge God as a humorist, for condemning the whole race 
of mankind for so small an offense as eating a little forbidden fruit. 
But this is their ignorance of the law^s of honor and gratitude : by 
which the slighter the thing demanded is, the greater the affront in 
refusing it. 



75 

Had David asked the inlieritance of ISTabal's estate, he had 
rendered himself as odious as Ahab did when he demanded Nabuth's 
vineyard. But liis request being only for some ordinar}^ provision, 
(in common with sheep-shearers), the refusal of it rendered ISTabal a 
churl not fit to live. 

(So, Naaman's servant said to his master, "Had the prophet bid 
thee do some great thing, w-ouldst thou not have done it? How 
much more wdien he only saith, wash and be clean! ") 

Man by his very creation entered into the labors of God himself, 
without one thought of his owm, and at the first moment of his being 
became Lord of the Universe, which was adapted tx) his enjoyments 
and pleasures. 

And God left him in possession of it all, upon his parol of honor 
onl}^, that he w^ould acknowledge it to be held of God ; and as the 
token of this tenure, that he would only forbear one common tree, 
(for it seems to be no more till it became otherwise by his eating of 
it), wathal telling him, that if he did eat of it, his life should go for 
it. Not that God thought his life satisfaction, but it was all the sat- 
isfaction God could have of him — it w^as rather a resentment of the 
affront, than any satisfaction for it. 

By wdiicli God show^ed, that, if man had more than his life to give, 
God would have had it of him. And, therefore, to signify the height 
of this resentment, God raises man from the dead to demand further 
satisfaction of him. 

Death is a commitment to the prison of the grave till the judg- 
ment of the great day; and then the grand habeas corpus will issue 
to the earth and to the sea, to give up their dead; to remove the 
bodies, watli the cause of their commitment: and, as these causes 
shall appear, tlie}^ shall either be released, or else sentenced to the 
common goal of hell, there to remain until satisfaction. 

Such w^as the resentment of despised love ; and yet this w^as a resent- 
ment without malice. For as God maintained his resentment under 
all his love, so he maintained his love under all his resentment. 

For his love, being a love of kindness flowing from the generosity 
of his own nature, could not be diminished by any art of man. And 
yet his honor being concerned to maintain the "truth of his W'Ord, he 
could not falsify that to gratify his own affection. 



76 

And thus he bore the passion of his own law, till he had found 
out a salve for his honor by that Son of Man, who gave him satisfac- 
tion all at once by the dignity of his person. 

Personal satisfactions, by the laws of honor, are esteemed suffi- 
cient or not sufficient, according to the equality or inequality 
between the persons who give and take the affront. 

Therefore, God to vindicate his honor, tlius affronted, was 
obliged to find out a person (for that purpose) equal to himself, who 
was affronted. 

The invention of which is called the manifold wisdom of God — 
the invention itself being the highest expression of the deepest love — 
and the execution of this invention (in the death of Christ) being the 
deepest resentment of the highest affront. Which death of Christ 
did nevertheless surmount all the demands made upon him. 

For as much as his person was superior in dignity to the human 
nature, so much the satisfaction by his death surmounted the 
offence of man. 

And thus, I say, this law being fulfilled and over-satisfied b}^ 
Christ in his death, was and is taken away, so that there was no such 
law in being against him after his resurrection. 

He was made under the law by his birth, but he did not arise 
under it, having taken it away by his death. And having thus taken 
away the law by his death, the life regained by him in his resurrec- 
tion was by conquest. 

He met with no quarter from God nor man : God would not save 
him from death, 'thohe asked him; and, therefore, he rescued him- 
self from it. 

He prayed to be preserved from death before it came upon him; 
but he craved no aid against the power of it towards his resyirrection : 
" Destroy this body, and I will raise it in three days." Die he knew 
he must; but rise he knew he could. 

And the reason of his resurrection was, because death could hold 
him no longer: for it was not possible that he should be held any 
longer of it. 

And this he did, not in contradiction to the will of God : for God 
having executed the law upon him by his death, he did not oppose 
him in his resurrection. And, therefore, 'tlio he could not come 



77 

down from the cross, because the will of God was then against him, 
yet he could arise from the dead, because the will of God did not 
then oppose him. 

And so, God leaving him to himself, he conquered death. By 
which, according to all the laws of conquest, the law of death is 
taken awa3\ 

For by the laws of conquest, the laws of the conquered are ipso 
facto taken awa}^ by the very conquest : and all records and writings 
that remain of them are of no more force than waste paper. 

The law of death (as I have said) remains in words, and will 
remain forever; but it had no more force against Christ after his 
resurrection than if it had never been made. And from hence the 
title of Christ to eternal life is become absolute. 
' By absolute, I mean discharged from all tenure or condition, and 
consequently from all forfeiture. 

And this is the title of conquerors, who hold of none but them- 
selves ; because they receive their right from none but their arms : and 
is in opposition to the tirst title of life delivered to Adam, which v\^as 
held by tenure, as being received from God; and being so held, it 
became forfeited to him of whom it was held, according to the laws 
of tenure. 

But Christ receiving his life in his resurrection from none but 
himself, ( *' I lay down my life of myself, and I take it up again," ) it 
is now his own without tenure; and therefore is absolute, and can- 
not be forfeited. 

And as his title to life is thus become absolute b}^ conquest: so 
the duration of it is become eternal, by being annexed to the person 
of the God-head. 

A man may have an absolute title, and 3^et that title ma}" be but 
for a time. 

Life is called temporal or eternal, according to the persons or 
things to which it is annexed or united. 

The life of vegetables and animals is called a temporal life: 
because it is annexed to things which have a temporal duration. 

And thus, accordiug to our laws, whatever is annexed to the 
person of a man, is adjudged to have continuance during his life. 

So that if land be conve3xd to a man indefinitely, without nam- 



ing any time liow long he sliall hold it, he has (without more saying) 
an estate for life, because his estate is annexed to his person, which 
is said to have continuance for his life. 

And hence the life of Christ, regained by the conquest of his 
resurrection, being annexed to the person of his Godhead, which is 
eternal, doth thereby become eternal life : for the life of God and 
eternal life are synonymous terms. 

And thus Christ, ever since his resurrection, did and doth stand 
seized of an absolute and indefeasible estate of eternal life, without 
any tenure or condition, or other matter or thing to change or deter- 
mine it for ever. 

And I had reason thus to assert the title of Christ at large. 

Because this is the title hy and under which I am going to affirm 
my argument, and to claim eternal life for myself and all the world. 

Had Christ thus become man, and died, and rose again, all vol- 
untarily, to try an experiment, he had only saved his own life, and 
left all the world to shift for themselves. 

But this would have been knight-errantry in tempting God; 
against which he hath sufficientl}^ declared himself. 

And yet, when I say he did it voluntaril}^ I don't mean that he 
did it unwillingly: for as he did it with all frankness and generosity 
of his will. (" I lay down my life of myself,'-) so he did it with the 
highest aifection of love to mankind: " Greater love than this hath 
no man, that he lay down his life for his friend." 

But I mean, he did not do it purely voluntarily, without a neces- 
sity of doing it ; and a consideration for it. 

First then: there was a necessity upon God himself. 

God told Adam, that if he did eat, he should die. The Devil 
told Eve, that they might eat, and not die. 

And these were the first words spoken to man by God or the 
Devil; upon the truth or falsehood whereof the very beings of them 
both Avere to depend forever. For which ever of them could main- 
tain the truth of his word against the other, he must have been God, 
and the other the Devil. 

And, therefore, God having turned the lie upon the Devil, he is 
from thence called a liar from the beginning, and the father of it; 
and will never be believed again for ever. 



God could not have dispensed with his word without compli- 
menting the Devil with his Godhead in taking the lie upon himself; 
and this he could not do: for God cannot lie without undeif3dng 
himself; and this he can't do, because all his qualities being of his 
essence, he can't change them. 

That God cannot change, is not a deficiency in his nature, but 
the perfection of his essence, which can be nothing but himself. 
For as it is the happiness of imperfect beings to be capable of 
change, in order to be made better; so it is the happiness of perfect 
beings to be incapable of change, whereby to be made worse. 

Man can lie, because he can't speak truth; there's nothing that a 
man can say but what he can unsay and falsify by the change of 
his mind, which he can change only because he can't fix it : as a man 
that hath a broken arm can turn it every way, because he can fix it 
no way. 

JSTothing but an absolute power can be absolute in any thing; 
therefore, man having no absolute power, can't absolutel}^ determine 
his own will; every change of which subjects him to a lie, either by 
falsifying his former resolutions, or his present inclinations. But 
God having an absolute power to determine his own will, he 
could not change it after he had so determined it; for wdiat is fixed 
can't be changed. 

Wherefore, God could not dispense with the breach of his law to 
pardon it. Which was not for want of mercy in God, for he hath 
and doth daily pardon ten thousand times the sins committed by 
man against the moral law, which seem as great offences as this. 

Because the moral law hath in itself a defeasance or condition 
annexed to it at the time of the first delivering of it. (" Except ye 
repent, ye shall perish.") By which this law may be fulfilled with- 
out a performance of it in specie : by doing another thing which is 
admitted to be done instead of it. 

A defeasance is not the same thing with the thing to be defeated, 
but something collateral to it. And thus repentance, which is not a 
performance of the moral law, is nevertheless accepted instead of it. 

But in this law delivered to Adam, there was no such condition 
annexed to it at the first deliver}^ The words are absolute: "In 
the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die;" which leaves no 



80 

mom for repentance. Adam did repent, but he found no place for 
it, lie could not find any words of the law to which he could apply 
his repentance to do him any good. 

And when a deed hath no defeasance or condition annexed to it 
at the time of the first delivery, it can't be added to it afterwards. 

And, hence, 'tlio this law delivered to Adam was at the time of 
the first delivery a law of life and death, yet the law of life being 
ended by breach of the condition, there was then nothing left but 
the law of death, which became absolute without an}^ condition. 

And this put God upon a necessity of executing the sentence of 
the law upon man in specie, or making himself a liar — which he 
could not do — and therefore the necessity upon him was absolute. 
Which necessity was (all the while) a contradiction to his nature, 
which is love to man: " God is love." 

And this divided him against himself, and laid him under a 
necessity of finding out an invention to reconcile his truth to his 
love, and his love to his truth. 

And this necessity upon God drew a necessity upon Christ to come 
and execute this invention, because none could do it but himself. 

Now, there being such a necessity for Christ's assuming the 
human nature, and dying under it, there was a covenant made 
between him and the Father, previous to his coming in the flesh, 
which is called the covenant of eternal life, and is the history of the 
scriptures, although it be not set down altogether in any one place. 
Rich metals and precious stones don't lie together in heaps above 
ground; but being so valuable when found, men think it worth their 
while to dig down for them in all places where they have any pro- 
bability of finding them. 

Then if the way and manner of attaining eternal life, doth lie in 
so narrow a volume as the bible, ("search the scriptures, for in 
them ye think ye have eternal life"), shall we not think it worth our 
while to search it through for that precious stone with a new name, 
which none can read but they that have it? 

And this is a more pleasant labor than the search for other jewels; 
for there we meet with nothing of pleasure or profit, till we find the 
very thing we seek for. But in making this enquiry, we divert our- 
selves with knowledge all the way we go. 



81 

Kor did God think any one man, or any one age of the world, 
worthy to have the whole of this covenant revealed to them all at 
once. He was four thousand years, from Adam to Christ, delivering 
it in types and shadows to sixty-two generations of men, who passed 
their age in that time. 

But having thus prefaced it at sundry times, and in divers man- 
ners to our fathers by the prophets, he at last spoke it to us by his 
Son. 

In which these parts do appear : 

1. The Date. 

2. The Parties. 

3. The Contents and Consideration. 
4-. The Sealing and Execution. 

0. The Witnesses. 

6. The Ceremony required of Man ^ iDherehy to execute it on 
his part^ and take the advantage of it. 

1. l^he Date. This was before the foundation of the world: "I 
was set up from everlasting. Before Abraham was, I am." " God 
who created all things by Jesus Christ, the lamb slain before the 
foundation of the Avorld." 

The priority of which date prevents any preincumbrance that 
could be made of eternal life : which is more than can be said of any 
titles amongst men. 

2. The Parties. It was between Him and the Father: " Lo, I 
come to do thy will, O, God. In the volume of the book it is writ- 
ten of me, ' I will give thee the Heathen for thy possession, and the 
utmost parts of the earth for thine inheritance.' " 

The first text tells what he came to do, and in pursuance of what 
agreement. The other, what he was to have for doing it, and who 
he was to have it from. Now God being the undoubted author of 
eternal life, there can be no hazard in this title for want of a right 
person to make the grant : which is more than can be said of any 
titles amongst men. 

3. The Contents and Consideration. That if he became bound, 
we should be made free: " He gave his life a ransom for many." 



82 

Christ well knew what man stood bound to under the law of 
death; and did as well know, that, if he himself ever came under 
that law, he must thereby become bound to the same; and that if he 
sliould come under the law, before he made an agreement previous 
to it, he should be concluded by the laAv to suffer under it upon his 
account, and thereby be incapacitated to capitulate with God about it. 
For the life of a man attainted (as Christ was the first moment 
of his birth) is forfeited to the law; and, therefore, after that he could 
not have been at liberty to treat with God concerning that law. 

And, thereupon, he would not become charged with this law till 
he had made this covenant: "That we that were before charged 
with it, might be discharged from it." By which he was to be 
neither surety nor bail for man. 

For in both these the principals still remain liable, and the 
sureties stand only hazarded with them, and have a remedy over 
against them. Which had been a dishonorable engagement for the 
dignity of so great a person. 

And, therefore, he offered himself a ransom, or nothing, to be 
delivered in exchange for the captives; whereby he alone stood 
bound. 

And as such he was accepted: "I have trodden the wine-press 
alone, and none of all the people with me." 

And, therefore, when he was taken, there was not a man taken 
with him: " I am Jesus of Nazareth Avhom ye seek, let these there- 
fore go their way. " 

And this was the highest honor that God could put upon him, to 
accept him a ransom for the whole w^orld. And yet this was not an 
honor above his merit : for, as in debts by civil contract, 'tis not the 
multitude but the solvency of the debtors that makes the payment; 
so in the laws of ransom, 'tis not the number but the dignity of the 
persons that is valued in the exchange. 

And hence this Son of Man being more worth than ten thousands 
of the people, his death was a greater honor to the law, than if all 
the world besides had died under it. 

And could man from hence understand the force of the covenant 
of eternal life, he might see himself discharged from death in the 
very moment the law fell upon Christ, (which was the instant of his 



birth), because man was to be ipso facto released upon Christ's becom- 
ing bound. And, after that, it was no matter to man whether Christ 
had ever given satisfaction to God or not : we might liave said to 
God, Look thou to that! 

For God, by this covenant, having once accepted Christ for a 
ransom, man coukl never after that have been retaken by any law 
of reprisal, although the ransom had escaped. (As soon as the ram 
was caught in the thicket, the sacrifice that before lay bound upon 
the altar was let loose.) 

I^ot that the coming of Christ in the flesh was the satisfaction, 
but, God was thereby sure of his satisfaction. For as certain as 
Christ by his birth became a living child in fact, so certain did he 
that moment become a dead man in law. 

But yet, all that I have hitherto said doth not amount to instate 
man into the same title of eternal life which Christ had after his 
resurrection; because a mere ransom doth in itself amount to no 
more than to restore us to the same liberty which we had before we 
were captive. 

And then this ransom by Christ would onl}^ have reinstated man 
into that law of life conditional, in which Adam stood before tJie 
fall. 

But God having found out this salw for his honor by that man 
Christ Jesus, he did at the same time find that this would not only 
do but over-do all that man had misdone. And that this super- 
abundancy might not run in waste, God did declare that, for this, 
man should have eternal life— absolute as Christ himself had it. 

And, hence, eternal life is called the "gift of God through our 
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ," over and above our redemption. 

So that now, b}^ this covenant of eternal life, we are not only 
ransomed from that law under which we fell in Adam, but are deliv- 
ered over into a state and title which we never had before the fall, 
viz. , that absolute and indefeasible estate of eternal life in which 
Christ was installed b}" his resurrection from the dead. 

And this redemption from one law, and deliverance over into 
another, are both done at the same instant, without any interval of 
time passing between them. As in convig^^ances amongst men, the 
title vests and divests, from one to another, by one and the same act. 



x\.nd', lience, this covenant is not called the covenant of redemp- 
tion, but "the covenant of eternal life," as tlie most worthy title. 
And, therefore, he that takes anything by this covenant, must take 
eternal life or nothing. 

A believer is never spoken of with a less addition than eternal 
life: "He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life." 

And thus it is in conveyances among men: whatever is contained 
in the deed can't be divided, but must pass altogether by the execu- 
tion of that deed; which, as to this, now stands next in order: 

4. The Sealing and Execution. For let the contents of a writing 
be what it will, it is neither deed nor covenant till it is executed. 

This covenant of eternal life being thus formed in Heaven, was 
afterwards sealed and executed by God himself, according to all the 
forms and ceremonies of titles among men. For God having estab- 
lished eternal life by a law, he hath used all the ceremonies of law to 
make a title to it. 

Every law prescribes its own ceremonies by which it is to be 
executed. 

The ceremony (as I have said) by which the law of death is 
executed upon man, is his birth. 

The ceremony by which the Jews received the law of Moses was 
circumcision. And the ceremony by which the covenant of eternal 
life was executed by God, is the blood of Christ. 

And now I am come to that point that hath puzzled the whole 
world : 

' ' What ! Eat the fleshy and drink the blood of a man^ and he saved f " 

That this covenant should be sealed is agreeable to all other 
titles amongst men. But that it should be sealed with tlie blood of 
Christ, seems very peculiar. 

And yet we shall find even this also to be most suitable to the 
common use of seals amongst men. 

We cause our seals to be impressed with the most memorable 
ensigns of honor that can be assigned to our families, whereb}^ they 
may be remembered, every time the deed is shown. And, amongst 
these, we esteem those most honorable which are gained in the field 
with tlie loss or hazard of our lives. 

Why then ! here's the Son of God thrown down from lieaven in 



85 

the form of a man, as a champion against death and hell, slain in 
the open tield, before the face of men and angels, in the quarrel and 
defence of his friends. And, after that, displaying himself again, 
with all his wounds about him: " Reach hither tli}" finger, and be- 
hold ni}^ hands ; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side. " 

Xow, first, I challenge the heroes to show such scars of honor as 
these. And then, I defy the Heralds to match it for a coat-of-arms. 
Such a champion, and such a cause; such a combat, and such a 
conquest ! 

And, therefore, (of all things in heaven and earth) God hath 
chosen out the blood of Christ to be the seal of the covenant of 
eternal life. That as often as man sees the seal of that covenant, he 
may remember the fate of that da}^: " As often as ye do this, do it 
in remembrance of me." 

The place of the execution of this covenant was upon earth. 
(Which instance hath put me upon mam^ thoughts by the bye.) 

The first notion of a God is, that he is equal to himself in all his 
attributes; audit seemeth blasphemy in man, of himself, to suppose 
any inequality in his Maker. 

But God having owned something which he values himself upon 
more than all the rest, man hath, thereby, leave so to conceive of 
him. Xow, he hath magnified his word above all his name. And 
in that word he hath bound himself by an oath to perform this cov- 
enant: " Once have I sworn by my holiness, that I will not lie unto 
David." 

And of all parts of this, as well as other covenants, the sealing is 
the greatest solemnity. 

This covenant then being sealed by God himself upon this globe 
of ground, I can't but think that man is to pass through his greatest 
change in the same place. But I'll say no more of that till I have 
done my argument. 

5. The Witnesses to the Execution. And these were first accidental, 
and they were the whole world: "The sound thereof is gone 
through the whole earth; for this thing was not done in a corner." 

Secondly, The direct Witness, and that was himself: "For this 
end was I born, and for this end came I into the world, to bear wit- 



86 

ness unto the truth." For as he did not depend upon the testimony 
of John to tell the world who he was, having a greater testimony of 
his own works; so he doth not depend upon man to witness this 
covenant, having attested it himself, in his own blood. 

And this is after the manner of kings, "Witness ourselves," 
because they can't have a greater; and like God himself, who swears 
by himself, because he can't swear by a greater. 

6. The Gereinony by loliicli this Covenant is to he Executed by Man. 
This covenant being thus executed by God himself, and attested in 
the blood of Christ, stands ready to be executed by man on his part. 

And this is also agreeable to the forms of title amongst men, w^ho 
can take no benefit of a deed but by acceptance of it. 

We distinguish our deeds by two titles : 

1st. An indenture, in which all the parties must be named. 

;^iidl;y. A DEED ROLL, in which the parties need not be named, but 
are described by the first prescription of the deed: as if the deed 
begins, "To all persons wdio shall subscribe these presents; " then 
every one by his subscription becomes a party, to take the benefit of 
all that is contained in that deed for the subscribers. 

Now in this covenant of eternal life the parties are not named, 
but every man is so described that he is at liberty to make himself a 
party to it. 

The words of this prescription are : 

i. Positive: . "He that eatetli ni}^ flesh, and drinketh my blood, 
hath eternal life." 

2. Negative: "Except ye eat the flesh, and drink the blood of 
the Son of Man, ye have no life in you." 

Which prescription doth not respect his blood as blood only, but 
as that blood is made the seal of this covenant: " This cup is the 
New Testament in my blood." 

We don't seal wax as wax, but as it is annexed to the deed, and 
made the seal thereof. For the sealing the same piece of wax at 
large separate from the deed, signifies nothing. 

And hence, it is not the wax that sanctifies the deed, but the 
deed* that sanctifies the wax. For if lead or any other malleable 



87 

substance be annexed to the deed, and impressed with the seals, it is 
as effectual as if it were wax. 

And, hence, Christ himself doth own that it was the sanction 
and mission of God upon him that made him the Redeemer of the 
world: " Say 3^ e of him whom God hath sanctified and sent into 
the world, that he blasphemeth, because he saitli he is the Son of 
God. " -^ * * " For him hath God the Father sealed. " And hence that 
great cognomen Christ is added to his proper name of Jesus. And 
thus the kings of Israel received their sanction b}^ the anointing of 
the Prophets. 

The distinction between things holy and common, sacred and 
civil, is the appointment of God put upon the one, and not upon 
the other. The things used in ceremonies are in themselves indif- 
ferent and insignificant; but by the sanction of those laws by which 
the}' are made ceremonies, they become the most necessar}^ and 
essential parts of the law. 

Such were the things used in the sacrifices of the Mosaical Law, 
foolish and insignificant in themselves; but being set in order accord- 
ing to the forms of that law, the}' became sanctions to one another. 
The gold of the Temple, the wood of the Altar, and the fiesh of 
beasts were all common things till they were used according to 
the Temple Lavs^s; and then and there the Temple sanctified the 
gold, and the Altar sanctified the gift. 

So 'tis in our law — a writing is nothing, and wax is nothing, and 
a seal is nothing, they are but cyphers in themselves; but if the 
wax be put to writing, and the seal to the wax, this makes the 
writing to be a deed, and is the form of a title. 

Men in their private stations may argue with one another j/9?'6> and 
con as long as they please, without doing good or hurt : but the 
Ay or No of one of these men given in a Court of Legislature, 
may turn the fate of a kingdom. 

And the more slight and plain these cermonies are b}" which 
titles are executed, the more sure the title is that is to come from 
them, because they can neither be mistaken nor forgotten. 

We think it an extravagant humor in God to distinguish men to 
be saved or damned, onh' for believing or not believing in Christ. 
But, may we not think it as extravagant in us to distinguish our- 



88 

selves to have, or not have, a thousand pounds a year, only for seal- 
ing, or not sealing a deed. 

Should we not call ourselves fools for refusing to put forth our 
hands to a piece of parchment, and take it off again, to get an estate 
by ? And yet we think ourselves wise in refusing eternal life, be- 
cause we may have it upon such easy terms. 

For 'tho, from the positive words of this prescription, the sealing 
and executing this Covenant of Eternal life by man (without more 
saying or doing) gives him as perfect a Title to Eternal Life, as the 
sealing of a deed among men can make to the lands contained in it, 
yet, from the negative words of the prescription, there can be no 
title to this Eternal Life without the compliance with this Ceremony. 
For if man can have any other title to Eternal Life than according 
to this Covenant, this Covenant don't give him a title to it. 

No deed gives man a title that leaves any part of the title at 
large out of the deed. If the grantor reserves any of the title to 
himself, then the grantee hath no perfect title. 

But God hath excepted nothing out of this ^Covenant, but his 
own Personal Life : '' For when it is said, that, ' he hath put all 
things under him,' it is manifest that he is excepted who hath put 
all things under him." 

Wherefore, all the other parts of Eternal Life are subject to this 
way of Life by Jesus Christ. And hence, all other attempts for 
Heaven are accounted sin: ^'He that entereth not in by the Door, 
but climbeth up some other way, is a Thief and and a Robber, and 
comes for to steal." 

And, having thus opened this Covenant: 

First, I put it upon the Profession of Divinity to deny one 
word of the fact, as I have repeated it. 

Next, I challenge the Science of the Law to shew such 
another title as this. 

And then, I defy the Logicians to deny my Argument. Of 
which this is the Abstract : 

That the Lctio delivered to Adam hefore the Fall, is the 
Original Cause of Death in the World. 
. That this Law is taken away by the Death of Christ. 
\ That, therefore, the Legal Poioer of Death is gone. 



89 

And I am so far from thinking this Covenant of Eternal Life to 
be an allusion to the forms of title amongst men, that I rather adore 
it as the precedent for them all; from which our imperfect forms are 
taken. Believing, with that great Apostle, that, " the things on 
earth are but the patterns of things in the heavens, where the 
originals are kept." 



But, why then doth death remain in the world f 

Why, because man knows not the way of life: ^' The way of 
life they have not known." 

Or, (as I said at the beginning), that, death maintains its dominion 
over us by our fear of it. Having no other right to remain with us, 
but because our faith is not yet come to us : " When the Son of Man 
comes, shall he find faith upon the earth ? " 

Man is a beast of burden, that knows not his own strength, in the 
virtue of the death, and the power of the resurrection of Christ. 
Which ignorance doth not proceed from want of revelation of the 
truth, but from our neglect to study, and inaptitude to believe it : 
*'0 fools ! and slow of heart to believe all that the Prophets have 
spoken." 

Unbelief don't go by reason or dint of argument, but is a sort of 
melancholy-madness, by which if we once fancy ourselves bound, it 
hath the same effect upon us as if we really were so. 

It is like the noise of war heard in the camp of the Syrians, 
which made them fly when no one pursued: or like that possession 
of fear which still kept the besieged within the garrison, 'tho the 
enemy had left the field. 

Death is like Satan, who appears to none but them that are afraid 
of him : '' Resist the Devil, and he will fly from you." Or like 
tyrants and saucy pedagogues, whose former cruelties render them 
terrible to those who have been under their lash, after they are freed 
from it. 

Because death had once dominion over us, we think it hath and 
must have it still. 



90 

And this I find within myself, that 'tho I can't deny one word I 
have said in fact or argument, yet I can't maintain my belief of it, 
without making it more familiar to my understanding, by turning 
it up and down in my thoughts, and ruminating upon some proceed- 
ings already made upon it in the world. 

Some specimens lohereof Til 'present to the reader : 

The motto of the religion of the world is, as I have said, ''Mors 
janua Vitce " — ( " Death is the gate of life.") 

Now, I say, if we do by this mean tJie death of Gltrist, then we are 
in the right. But, if by this we mean our oion death, then we are in 
the wrong. The death of Christ was necessary for him and us both, 
because the Covenant of Life would not take eifect but by his death; 
which in the covenant hath two capacities. 

Is't. As it was the consideration upon which the covenant was 
made. 

^dly. As it was the ceremony by which it was executed. 

But ail this being over and done, the death of man is wholly 
useless, and serves to no intent or purpose in order to eternal life, 
nor ever did. 

■And could we distinguish between the change of our state, and 
the change of our persons and places, this doctrine would be more 
plain to us. 

By state, I always mean title ; so that when I say a man is in the 
state of life, I mean he is by law entitled to live; and when I say he 
is in the state of death, I mean he is by law appointed to die. 

Now a man may change his state, without change of his person 
or place. Christ by his death and resurrection did pass under an 
invisible change of his state, by being discharged from that law of 
death to which he stood before subjected by his birth, and being trans- 
lated into that law of life which he gained by his resurrection. 

Which 'tho it were only a legal or invisible translation, he was 
thereby as safe from death as he is now, being ascended and sitting 
at the right hand of God. And yet his person remained here un- 
changed: ''Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I, myself" 
These were marks of honor that could not be counterfeit. 



91 

xind that some did not know liim, is said to be from tlieir unbelief, 
or that their eyes were holden that they should not know him. 

But 'tho this change of his state in an instant, did not w^ork so 
sudden an alteration in his person, yet it did entitle his person to 
a change for the better, which title he had not before his death. 

Christ was as perfect in his nature and his principles before death 
as he w^as afterwards ; and yet he could not then make his immediate 
passage to heaven by way of translation, because he was fallen under 
that law, which did oblige him to the common fate of death. 

But having once suffered this, and thereby, and by his resurrec- 
tion, delivered himself from that law w^hicli had obliged him to 
it, he then stood perfectly qualified to make his exit by w^ay of trans- 
lation. And, therefore, having done all he had to do upon earth, he 
claimed a right of re-entrance into his former glory without dying 
any more : " I liave finished the work thou gavest me to do. Now 
glorify me with that glory ichich I had with thee hefore the world 
began.'' 

And, thereupon, Grod sent him dow^n one of the chariots of heaven 
to convey him thither ; as he had done before to those two heroes of 
old — whom I have excepted out of the possession of death — upon 
this their faith in Him, before they saw him: ''Blessed are they that 
ham not seen, and yet have 'believed.'" 

Now, I say this, that as Christ did thus change his state upon 
earth, without change of his person or place, so man may do too ; 
with this difference, that 'tho Christ passed this change by his own 
death and resurrection, yet we can't do it by our own death and 
resurrection, but must do it by passing through the death and resur- 
rection of Christ in that legal form prescribed by the Covenant of 
Eternal Life : because his death, and not ours, is made the seal of 
that covenant. 

And this man may do, without any real death or resurrection of 
his own. 

If the death and resurrection of Christ be the passage into eternal 
life, then he that is passed this, is passed into eternal life; whether 
he himself ever died or not. 

And for us to think to imitate Christ in attaining eternal life by 
passing through death, because Christ did so, shows us to be as 



92 

ignorant of tlie law of eternal life, as a man would seem of our 
laws, who seeing anotlier entitled to an estate by sealing of a piece 
of wax upon a piece of parchment, should think to get the same 
himself, by doing the same thing upon other pieces of the like, of 
his own putting together. 

For my own part, I thank God, I have already made this so 
familiar to myself, that could I pass through an actual death and 
resurrection of my own without pain, I would not value the experi- 
ment as anything tow^ards salvation, further than this, that I should 
thereby know that there is nothing in it. And of this I am as well 
satisfied by the experiments made upon others, as if it were upon 
myself. 

When Christ had opened the eyes of the man born blind, the 
people were ready to interrogate him to death: "WTiatf " '' Howf " 
" Where f" " When f " " Did he cure you f " '' What did he say to 
youV "What did he do to you?" ''What did you see first?" 
"What did you feel first?" But he knew no more of the matter 
than they did: only that, '' Whereas, I to as blind, now I see ! " 

So, when the people flocked about Lazarus, expecting to hear 
from him some news of the other world, he could give them no other 
account of it, than, '' Whereas, I teas dead, noio I am cdive." He was 
neither richer nor wiser by his resurrection, nor could learn by that 
how to escape another death, but died again : and might have thus 
died and rose, and rose and died a hundred times, without any change 
of his state. 

Wherefore, Samuel asked Saul, "TT/^^/ dost thou disquiet me to 
bring me up ? " What wouldst thou have with me ? Is it to see me ? 
Why here I am, an old man in a mantle, as thou hast seen me a 
hundred times ! Wouldst thou talk with me ? Why, thou knowst 
what I have told thee, over and over, " The Lord is departed from 
thee, and hath rent the kingdom out of thy hand; " and so I tell you 
now, and more I cannot say ! 

If men will not believe Moses and the Prophets while they are 
living, why should we fancy we shall rather believe them when 
risen from the dead? If they say the same things over again, it is 
impertinence ; and should they contradict themselves, how could 
we believe them ? 



93 

We have strange conceptions of death and resurrection as long 
as we are on this side of them. But when we have once passed 
through and find ourselves much the same as we were before, we 
shall be at as much loss about it as we are now\ 

And if the death of others who have died before us, hath put us 
into such a fear of death that we shall die too, I can't conceive how 
our own death should discharge us of that fear after our resurrection, 
but that it should rather augment it ; for what we have once felt, 
we are ever after more afraid of feeling again: ''The 'burnt cTdld 
dreads the fire.'' 

And yet far be it from me to say that man may not attain to 
eternal life 'tho he should die; for the text runs double, '' I am the 

EESUERECTION AND THE LIFE ; HE THAT LIYETH AKD BELIEYETH 
ON ME SHALL NEVER DIE, AND 'THO HE "WERE DEAD HE SHALL 

LITE." But this I say, that by this very text there is a nearer way 
of entering into eternal life than by the way of death and resur- 
rection. 

Whatever circumstances a man is under at the time of his faith, 
God is bound upon his fidelity to make good this text to him, accord- 
ing to which part of it he builds his faith upon. 

If he be dead, then there's a necessity for a resurrection. But if 
he be alive, there's no occasion for death or resurrection either. 

Nor doth this text maintain two religions, but two articles of 
faith in the same religion. 

But this I do apprehend, that the article of faith for a present 
life without dying, is a higher article of faith than that which 
expects death and resurrection ; because I passed through this last 
article long before the other (which I am now arguing for) ever 
entered into my thoughts. 

I once courted death, as Elijah did under the juniper tree in the 
wilderness, when he requested for himself to die, and said, " Xow, 
Lord, take away my life, for I am not better than my fathers." 
Which shews that he w^as not educated in this faith of translation, 
hut attained it aftericards hy study. 

For no man can comprehend the heights and depths of the Gospel 
at his first entrance into it. And in point of order, ''the last enemy 
to be destroved is death. 



94 

The first essay of faith is against liell, that 'tho we should die 
we might not be damned. And the full assurance of this is more 
than most men attain to before death overtakes them; which makes 
death a terror to them. 

But they that do attain to this assurance before they go hence, 
can sing a requiem at their death: " Lord, now lettest thou thy ser- 
vant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." 

And if God takes them at their words, they lie down in the faith 
of the resurrection of the just. But whenever he pleases to continue 
them (after this attainment) much longer above ground, that time 
seems to them an interval of perfect leisure, (as Alexander's did to 
him after his conquest); till at last espying death itself, they fall upon 
it as an enemy that must be conquered one time or other through 
faith in Christ, 

And for this cause there seems a respite of time intended to be 
allotted to believers after the first resurrection, and before the dis- 
solution of the world, for perfecting that faith- which they began 
before their death, and which they could not attain to in the first 
reach of life. For death being but a discontinuance of life ; wher- 
ever men leave off at their death, they must begin at their resurrec- 
-tion. 

The believers already dead are not ascended into the heavens: 
" For David is not ascended into the heavens." Nor shall they 
ascend after their resurrection, till they have attained to this faith of 
translation. And by that very faith they shall be then convinced 
that, if they had had that faith before, they need not have died. 

The story of Lazarus makes this plain. 

His two sisters said to Christ, that if lie had been there their 
brother had not died. 

And others that stood by said, '' Could not this Man, that opened 
the eyes of the blind, have even caused that this man should not 
have died ? " 

And Martha said further, that lohatever Christ would yet ask 
of God, God icould give it him. By w^hich she declared her faith 
to be, that Christ could raise her brother presently. 

Now these people had not these articles of faith from any religion 



95 

then commonly received amongst them. But observing the miracles 
Christ had done before, they could not beat it out of their heads, 
but that he could have prevented the death of Lazarus, and could 
then raise him presently. Both which were right and rational con- 
clusions, and did form a true religion in them. 

But when Christ closed in with them upon it, and offered to make 
it good by raising the dead man presently, they all fell to recanting 
their faith : one cried, ''He stinketh," and the other, "He hath been 
dead four days," and, thereupon, desired him to desist. 

And the reason of the recantation is evident. The common 
religion then received amongst them concerning the resurrection 
was, (what we still retain), that " there will he a resurrection at the 
last day.'' 

And this having gained an impression upon them from the force 
of education, was too strong for that single impression which fell 
upon their minds from their own observation only. And, therefore, 
they thought it safer to renounce their own faith than the religion 
delivered them by their parents. 

But Christ by doing the thing, did convince them that their own 
faith and opinion of him was right. And yet he did not say that 
the religion delivered them by their parents was wrong : for that 
there will be a resurrection at the last day, in which all they that are 
not before that time raised, shall then arise. But what he said (by 
this text) was, that this resurrection at the last day doth not j)revent a 
present resurrection from death, nor an immediate translation with- 
out death, to them whose faith is ready to receive it. 

We must all be changed, but we need not all die in 

ORDETt TO BE CHANGED; FOK 'TIS NOT DEATH THAT WORKS OUR 
CHANGE, BUT THE DEATH AND RESURRECTION OF ChRIST, WHICH 
WE MAY PASS THROUGH WITHOUT DEATH. 

Paul was of this religion, that we may be changed without 
death: '' We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed." 

And yet 'tho he had delivered this to be his faith in general, he 
did not attain to such a particular knowledge of the way and manner 
of it, so as to prevent his own death. And his confession tells us the 
reason of his failure, That he had not yet attained the resurrection of 
the dead, but was pressing after it. 



96 

But 'tlio lio was taken away in this pursuit, lie liatli not lost his 
labor, but is got so much nearer to the mark, and at his resurrection 
will be so far before hand with them that never studied it. 

He had but a late conversion, and, after that, was detained in the 
study of another part of Divinity, the confirming the New Testa- 
ment by the Old, and making them answer one another ; in which 
he seems to have spent himself, and from whence all students in 
Divinity after him have stood upon his shoulders : for this is a 
point previous to the faith of translation, and must be learned before 
it in order to it 

And this his pressing ('tho he did not attain) hath much 
encouraged me to make this inquiry ; being well assured that he would 
not have thus pursued it, had he not apprehended more in it than 
the vulgar opinion is about it. 

We don't think ourselves fit to deal with one another in human 
affairs till our age of one-and-twenty. But to deal with our Maker 
thus offended, to counter-plot the malice of fallen angels, and to 
rescue ourselves from eternal ruin, we are generally as well qualified 
for before we can speak plain, as all our life-time after. 

Children can say over their religion at four or five years old, and 
their parents that taught them can do no more at four or five-and- 
fifty. For religion being preached to them as a mystery, they are 
forbid to think of understanding it: GrcBCum est, no ii potest legi. 

The common creed of the Christian religion may be learned in an 
hour. And one day's philosophy will teach a man to die. 

But to know the virtue of the death and power of the resurrection 
of Christ, is a science calculated for the study of men and angels for 
ever. 



But, if man may be thus changed without death, and that it is of 
no use to him in order to eternal life, what then is death ; or, 
whereunto serveth it ? 

What is it ? Why 'tis a misfortune fallen upon man from the 
beginning; and from which he hath not yet dared to attempt his 
recovery. And it serves as a spectrum to fright us into a little better 
life than (perhaps) we should lead without it. 



'Tho God liatli formed this covenant of eternal life against death, 
man still maintains a covenant with it: ''They have made an 
agreement with death and hell." By way of composition, to submit 
to death, in hopes, by that obedience, to escape hell. 

And under this oath of allegiance we think ourselves bound never 
to rebel against it. 

The study of philosophy is, to teach men to die from the observa- 
tions of nature. 

The profession of divinity is, to enforce this doctrine from reve- 
lation. 

And the science of the law is, to settle our civil affairs pursuant 
to these resolutions. 

The old men are making their last wills and testaments : and the 
young are expecting the execution of them by the death of the 
testators. 

And thus. 

Mortis ad exemplum totus compordtur orhis. 

Now, w^hat one man dares raise a faction against the whole world 
thus constituted under the political government of death ? 

Why but! if the truth of religion be defined by the number of 
professors, then the Mahometan is safer than the Christian, and the 
Komish than the Protestant. 

The majority of votes in civil affairs may conclude our right, but 
it don't thereby convince our judgement. Nor are our rights thereby 
concluded further than for that turn only. 

And thus it is in the whole scheme of government. 

In the Power Elective : The majority of electors conclude the mi- 
nority for that turn only. 

In the Poioer Legislative : The majority of the Legislators make 
a law ; but their successors are not by this precluded from repealing 
that law by another majority. 

In the Power Judicial : The opinion of the majority make a rule 
in law; but their successors may alter those rules by the like 
majority. Which hath made much difference betw^een opinion^ 
ancient and modern. 



98 

And 'tho these seem (and indeed are) incertainties in the law, yet 
the policy of man can't form a better : becaase those laws or judge- 
ments which are good at the time of the making, may come to be 
otherwise by things that may happen in revolution of time. 

And, therefore, none but God himself (who alone foreknows 
times and seasons) can establish an eternal law. 

When the vastness of empire in the Persian Monarchy had 
raised a pride in their kings to arrogate to themselves this power, 
it proved but a fallacy. 

And thus when Hadassah (the Queen) had prevailed upon 
Ahasuerus to reverse his decree for the massacre of the Jews, the 
Scribes (who were the lawyers in those days) soon found out an 
evasion of the law^ to suit the change of the King's mind. They let 
the former proclamation for the massacre go as it was; and issued 
out another, granting the Jews liberty to stand for their lives with 
force of arms. 

And, thus, both these decrees were executed, with the loss of 
about 75,000 men slain on one side. And yet, forsooth, these two 
proclamations, so contrary to one another, and issued within less 
than three months one of the other, must bear the sacred name of 
eternal laws for the honor of the King that made them. 

This I instance to show that the policy of man can't constitute an 
eternal law. 

And from hence, (I say), I am not so much concerned for the 
present opinion of the world against me; because, being but the 
opinion of men, it is subject to a change. And I know the time when 
the whole world were of another oj^inion. 

Adam ai^d Eve had no fear of death till they fell under 

THE LAW OF DEATH. AnD COULD THEIR POSTERITY, WHO ARE 
FALLEN UNDER THIS LAW WITH THEM, APPREHEND THEIR DELIVER- 
ANCE FROM IT INTO THE LAW OF LIFE, THEY WOULD ALL BE CON- 
VERTED IN A DAY. 

I was under this law of death once ; and, while I lay under it, I 
felt the terror of it, till I had delivered myself from it by those 
thoughts that must convince them that have them. And in this 
thing only I wish (for their sakes) that all men were as I am. 

Nor do I yet think myself obliged in this argument to dispute all 



the rest of the world by unites. For in matters of faith men aggre- 
gate into churches and classes, where we may argue with a whole 
clan of them at once. 

Now for children and madmen, and all the nations that know not 
God, nor call upon his name, I am no more capable of discussing this 
point with them, than with creatures wholly deprived of speech. 
But for the whole Christian world professing their religion from 
revelation, I'll venture to encounter them all at once, and that in 
their own creed — which I know they can run over as fast as a mariner 
doth the points of the compass. 

But if after that we would but catechise ourselves a little in it, 
we shall find that, when we come to the main point, our faith will 
be, like the Athenian's worship, we believe, we know not what ! 

" Ydu believe in God^ and in Jesus Christ Ids Son our Lord ; horn 
of the Virgin ; suffered under Pontius Pilate ; crucified, dead, buried; 
rose again the third day, ascended into Heaven, sitting at the right hand 
of God : and from tlience lie shall come to judge the living and the dead^ 

Very well ! this is a full description of the person in whom you 
place your faith. But what is it that you do or would believe of him, 
or in him ? 

Why, we believe him for our Saviour. 

Save you ! from what ? 

Why ! from our sins. 

Why, what hurt will sin do you ? 

Why, it iDill Tcill us. 

How do you know? 

Why, the Laic of God saith so : '' In the day thou eatest thereof, 
thou shalt die.'' 

Why, but then will not this Saviour save you from this law, and 
from this death ? 

No, no; he'll save us from sin. 

Why, then it seems you have got a pardon for horse -stealing, 
with a non obstante to be hanged. 

Do but see now, what a jest you have made of your faith I And 
yet, I defy the order of priesthood to form a better creed than this, 
without admitting the truth of my argument ; or, to make sense of 
their own faith, without adding mine to it. 



100 

It is raucli easier to make a creed, tlian to believe it after it is 
made. Nor can any man really believe any part of tbe Grospel tliat 
doth not believe it all. For it is a doctrine so dependant upon itself, 
tliat, unless we know the whole of it from the beginning to the end, 
we can't know the use or reason of any part of it. 

Wherefore, (notwithstandhig this inundation of death in the 
world, and the infection of fear contracted upon man from hence,) 
I am not af righted from reassuming my assertion at the beginning: 

That this long possession of death over man^ is a possession against 
right. 

That the length of this possession is no foreclosure of the right of man 
to life. 

And that he that dares prosecute his claim icith effect^ onay recover 
this right ^ and avoid that possession. 

And that he that is got through the death and resurrection of Christy 
hath had judgement against death, and execution of eternal life.* 

Christ by the instant of his resurrection, stood dissolved from all 
his former relations to the world ; neither could he die any more, 
being become a child of the resurrection. For 'tlio he did arise with 
the same body with which he died, yet that risen body was not the 
Son of the Virgin Mary, because he had assumed it by a new power, 
and in another manner than that by which he was first born. 

The body with which he lay down in the grave waf? of no more 
use to him in his resurrection than so much other common matter; 
for he was put to add life to it by his own power — which he could 
have done to any other matter as well as that. 

The present bodies of men laid down in the grave are of no use 
to Grod in the resurrection. Therefore, he permits them to be dis- 
solved into any other forms, knowing that he can give the old forms 
again to any other matter by those characters of them which remain 
with him: ^'God is able out of these stones to raise up children 
unto Abraham." 

And in this he resembles himself to a potter, who takes no care 
to preserve his broken pots for any other use of them ; because, hav- 
ing the moulds by him, he can make several vessels of the same 
figure out of one earth as well as another. And 'the all the vessels 



101 

of the same mould are not the same in identity of matter, yet being 
the same in form, they are the same to all uses, intents, and 
purposes. 

And hence, 'tho the dead shall not arise with the same identity of 
matter with which they died, yet, being in the same form, they will 
not know themselves from themselves, being the same to all uses, 
intents, and purposes. 

But in this Gfod is so curious an artist that he keeps a several 
character in heaven for every figure of man on earth, by which (as 
the Apostle saith) ''every seed shall receive its own body.'^ 

Whereas, we (like fac-simile mechanics) make one mould serve 
for a thousand figures. 

But then as Grod (in the resurrection) is not bound up to use the 
same matter, neither is he obliged to use a different matter. When- 
ever the body to be raised doth remain so entire from corruption that 
the form of it is not spoiled, God uses that form again, as it is, with- 
out composing any other matter. 

Thus he did with the body of Christ, according to that promise, 
'' Thou wilt not leave my soul in grave, nor suffer thy Holy One to 
see corruption." And thus Christ did with the bodies he raised in 
the days of his flesh. 

All which I instance still to show the insignificancy of death, one 
way or other, in order to eternal life ; and that the death of man 
works no change in him. 

To make this still more plain, consider when and where the pre- 
destination of Grod is executed upon man. 

Christ said, " Rejoice in this, that your names are written in the 
Book of Life." Which he would not have commanded man upon 
earth, if the knowledge of it (which seems to be the top of man's 
ambition) were not attainable here. 

Now this being part of the secret Will of Grod, (as his own 
memorandums of what he intends to do,) it can't be shown to man 
by inspection. 

But when God comes to execute this secret will, then it becomes 
part of his revealed will, which belongs to man : " Secret things 
belong to God; but things revealed, to us and to our children." 



102 

And the time of the execution of this decree being the 
instance of our faith in christ — " as many as were ordained 
to eternal liite believed " — we may by this be as sure that 
our names are written in the book of life, as if we had 

WROTE IT WITH OUR OWN HANDS. AnD THAT THIS INSTANT OF 
FAITH IS THE TIME OF THE EXECUTION OF THIS DECREE, APPEARS 

BY WHAT Christ said to the thief on the cross: ''This day 

SHALT THOU BE WITH ME IN PARADISE. " 

From whence some think themselves obliged to believe a separate 
existence of the soul from the body by death. For (say they) some- 
thing of this man did immediately go into Paradise, and we see his 
body remains here : ergo, his soul went. Whereas, Christ did not 
speak this of the person, but the state of the man. 

Christ and he were both under the same state before they were 
executed, which was the law of death. And that very day they both 
exchanged this state into the state of life ; Christ by his own death, 
and the man by faith in him ; 'tho the person of Christ went one 
way, and his another. 

So, from the words of David, '' Thou wilt not leave my soul in 
grave," there was a conception raised of the separate existence of 
of the soul; for (think we) the body of David is in the grave: ergo^ 
his soul is gone to heaven by itself. 

But Peter evinced this doctrine as erroneous, by showing that 
David spoke prophetically of the resurrection of Christ, in which 
the word soul comprehends his whole human life, which did die and 
rise together. And that it is translated soul, is an Anglicism, not 
understood in other languages, which have no other word for soul 
but the same which is for life. As 'tis usual for some peculiar coun- 
tries to have an odd name for a common thing, which is not vulgarly 
known in any other parts of the same kingdom. 

See how man's life came to him at first. God first formed the 
figure of man's body in common earth. (From whence men also form 
figures of one another.) Then to this figure Grod added life, by 
breathing it into him from himself, whereby this inanimate body 
became a living one. But in this composition the spirit is so 
perfectly mixed with and diffused through the whole body, that 
we can't now say which is spirit , nor which is earth ; but the whole 



108 

is one entire living creature. As in leavened dougli, we can't say 
whicli is the leaven, nor wliicli is the dougli. 

But God, who first i?2 fused this life, can extract it out again, and 
leave the hody as it was hefore this life was thus put into it. And this 
form of death God chose for man: ''Dust thou art, and unto dust 
shcdt thou return.'' 

God unmakes man just as he made him. He takes him to pieces 
like a jointed tool; he draws in his breath to himself, and leaves the 
lump to the elements of which it was at first composed, which by 
degrees loses its very form, and takes its place again in common 
with other matter. 

And thus the spirit returns to God that gave it ; for the 
remainder of the spirit is with him. But in this return, the spirit of 
man maintains no self-existence, having surrendered itself into the 
ocean of life, from whence it first flowed. When rivers return into 
the sea, they are no more rivers, but lose their name and property, 
being merged in the ocean of their original fountain. 

And yet God doth retain in his memory the particular characters 
or ideas of every instance of life which he doth so extract, from 
whence (in the day of the restitution of all things) every body shall 
have its own spirit, and every spirit its own body. 

But to return to my argument, (whence I have a little digressed, 
to descant upon this opinion of the self-existence of the soul). 

If this man that was crucified with Christ, did immediately 
become in the same state with him, how comes it that he lies still in 
the grave, w^liile Christ is ascended into the Heavens ? 

To this I say, that, 'tho this man's first faith did thus qualify him 
for a change of state, yet he had not proceeded far enough in this 
faith to qualify himself for an immediate translation of his person; 
but this he must expect with the rest of them who have died in the 
same faith with him, and who will not now attain that perfection till 
after the resurrection : for there's no work in the grave. 

Man is as safe upon his first faith in Christ as if he were in 
Heaven ; but he don't know it. And God will not deliver out eternal 
life to man faster than he makes him understand it ; for the 
knowledge of eternal life is the essence of it: '' This is eterncd life, 
to know God and Jesus Christ.'^ 



104 

Every man possesses as much of eternal life as lie knows ; and he 
knows as much as he possesseth, and no more. And what the 
residue of eternal life is, beyond our present knowledge, it hath not 
entered into the heart of man to conceive : for no man can know till 
he doth know. 

And hence the different gifts of faith by God bestowed upon man 
are incommunicable to one another. 

Abraham was singled out by God as the father of the faithful; and 
yet he never attained the faith of translation, which his progenitor 
Enoch had done before him. 

Elisha was an eye-witness of Elijah's translation, and had a 
double portion of his spirit given him, by which he wrought miracles 
on others ; and yet, after all, he died the common death of man, hav- 
ing not attained to the faith of his master in that point. 

And thus the Apostles themselves, who raised others from the 
dead through faith in Christ, did not yet attain this faith to prevent 
themselves from death. 

Whence, I say, that, God in the distribution of eternal life doth 
not give any part of it to man, contrary to his own opinion and 
apprehension of it. 

And this is suitable to the dealings of men with one another. If 
an illiterate man be to seal a deed, which he can't read, and another 
takes upon him to read it to him, and reads it in other words than 
what are written, the law will adjudge the execution of it to be in 
the sense read, and not in the words written ; because he that 
sealed it did so understand it. 

So, when the common preachers of the Christian religion do 
administer the blood of Christ to their communicants in the sacra- 
ment, as significant only to save them from hell after death, but as 
ineffectual against death itself, how should the people (who per- 
haps think themselves obliged to swear in verba magistri) have any 
higher conceptions of it. 

And thus, " like priests, like people." 

As it is delivered them, so they understand it. 

And as they undestand it, so they receive it. 

And as they receive it, so it hath effect upon them : " According 
to thy faith be it unto thee." 



lOo 

Whicli faith (I say) is knowledge, not by sight, but by evidence 
of things not seen — of which we may have stronger notions than by 
our eye-sight. 

The face of a man gives us but a superficial knowledge of him, 
but his works and writings tell us his principles and capacities. 

And thus man knows Grod by his word and his works. Nor doth 
God offer himself to man in any way awkward to human under- 
standing. 

The reason why I believe that this doctrine I am asserting is true, 
is, because Grod hath said it. But yet I could not thus assert it by 
argument, if I did not conceive it with more self-conviction than 
I have from any maxims or positions in human science. 

Whenever Christ speaks of life and resurrection, he means his 
own: ''I am the resurrection and the life." And if we would thus 
understand him, this doctrine would be plain to us whether we 
would or no. But our heads are so full of our own business, that we 
can't think of any death or resurrection but that of our own persons. 

And thus we are at cross purposes with him ; as men are with one 
another, when one talks of chalk and another of cheese. 

Christ saith, " they that attain that life, and the resurrection 
from the dead, can die no more, being the children of the 
resurrection." 

Now here we fancy presently, that, when the persons of men 
have been once dead and risen again, they can die no more. But 
this is false; for Lazarus and the others raised by miracles did not 
thereby become the children of the resurrection, but remained still 
the children of this world, and as such died again. 

But Christ by his resurrection did thereby become a child of the 
resurrection, and did not, nor could then after die any more. 

And, therefore, whoever can attain this resurrection, can die no 
more neither. And this is attainable by knowledge acquired in 
study, like attainments in other sciences. 

The perfection of any science is a mystery to the first beginners 
in it ; and, hence, 'tis in vain to speak wisdom to any but the 
perfect. 

Now the Covenant of Eternal Life is a law of itself, and a science 
of itself, which can never be known by the study of any other 



106 

science but itself. It is a science out of man's way, being a pure 
invention of God. Man knows no more liow to save himself, than 
lie did to create himself. 

But to raise man's ambition to learn this, Grod graduates him 
upon his degrees of knowledge in it, and gives him badges of 
honor as belonging to that degree, as men do to one another in other 
sciences. And thus the knowledge of the virtue of the death and 
the power of the resurrection of Christ, makes a degree in this 
science. Upon the attainment whereof, a man gains the title of a 
child of the resurrection. To which title doth belong this badge of 
honor, to die no more, but to make our exit by way of translation, 
as Christ himself (who was the first of this order) did before us. 
And this world being the academy to educate man for Heaven ; none 
shall ever enter there till they have taken this degree here. But when 
once they have passed this, they can never after be degraded again, 
to be turned down amongst the dead, (as the fallen angels were from 
Heaven), because they hold by the title of the Captain of their Sal- 
vation, which is absolute and indefeasible. 

Take one thought more, which seems plainer than all the rest: 

It is said, " We that are alive at his coming, shall be caught up 
together in the air with him; " and we are commanded to be always 
ready for the second coming of Christ. 

Then, if death be necessary to qualify us for this second coming 
of Christ, the next thing we all have to do is to kill ourselves, that 
v/e may be so far in our way : unless we do expect that he should 
stay for us, when he comes, while we die and rise again — which he 
hath declared he will not do: " For the least stay for the greater." 
This long interval of time between his first and second coming, 
is allowed for the preaching of the gospel : " The gospel must first 
be preached through the whole world as a witness to all nations, 
and then shall the end be." But every man, as fast as he hears of 
it is in the meantime at liberty to embrace it, without staying for 
them that are to come after him. 

The law and the prophets were until John ; but since the days 
of John the Baptist, the kingdom of Heaven is preached, and every 
man passeth into it. 



107 

We are not confined to the religion of tlie old world, nor to 
expect the success of the latter days by the second coming of 
Christ, but are at liberty every moment to enter into the Kingdom 
of Heaven as fast as we can bring our faith up to it. 

That he delays his second coming, is not that he hath any more 
to do in order to man's salvation, for as to that he declared it finished 
before ever he yielded to death. But the w^orld is not ready to 
receive him, and till then the Heavens must contain him. Whence 
this is called the day of his patience. 

But this doth not not prohibit them that are ready to come to 
him where he is : " Come, for all things are now ready." He then 
was, and still is ready for the resurrection of the dead: ''The hour 
is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son 
of God; and they that hear shall live." Where we see the emphasis 
of the resurrection is not placed in any point of time, but in the 
hearing of that voice, be it when it will. 

And 'tis observable that in all the miracles wrought by him upon 
the bodies of the dead, he used different words of command, accord- 
ing to the different circumstances which the persons to be raised 
were then under. 

The son of the widow of Nain, and the daughter of Jairus, being 
both dead, and neither buried, when he first came to them, he only 
said to them "Arise; " but Lazarus being in the grave, he said to him, 
'' Come forth." 

And he did not only give different words of command, but pre- 
fixed to each command a particular description of the very person 
he called for. He touched the bier of the widow's son and said, 
" Young man, arise." And took the Ruler's daughter by the hand 
and said, " Maid, arise." And Lazarus he called by his name. Which 
were injunctions to the rest of the dead to lie still till he called them. 
For as he himself observed in two other instances, " That there 
were many widows in the days of the famine; but unto none of 
them was the prophet sent, save unto the woman of Sarepta: and 
many lepers in the days of Elisha the Prophet, but none of them 
were cleansed save Naaman the Syrian." So, many young men and 
maids were dead and buried in those days of the Son of Man, but 
none of them were raised save those he called for. 



108 

Nor did they arise together^ nor any one of tliem by virtue of 
the word of command given to the other of them, but every one in 
his own order, as they were named and called. Nor shall there a 
man or woman arise from the dead for ever till the Son of God calls 
them by their name. And whoever, after that, dares stay for his 
fellows, shall never be called again. 

They that were first bidden to the feast and refused to come, 
were not again admitted with them that accepted the invitation, but 
stand barred forever by that dreadful sentence, '' They shall never 
taste of my supper." And yet they did not refuse it by a fiat denial, 
but with the usual complement that ''they were otherways 
engaged." 

But if he would not admit the son of a dead man to go back and 
bury his father, dare we ask him leave (after he had called us 
to Eternal Life) to go and lie with our dead fathers and our dead 
mothers till the resurrection at the last day ? Let the dead bury the 
dead, and the dead lie with the dead, and the rest of the living go 
lie with them : I'll follow him that was dead, and is alive, and lives 
forever. 

Nor can I think who I should stay for. Will any one pursuing 
after wealth, wait for a beggar ? Or he that's flying for his life, 
keep pace with a cripple ? Why then should a man, aspiring after 
Heaven, stay for petty canons and vestry-men ? 

I remember the best bred man that ever was in the world, com- 
mended publicans and harlots for entering into the Kingdom of God 
before them that thought themselves their betters. And, therefore, 
he that stands complementing with the door of eternal life in his 
hand, offering the ceremony to others to go before him, shews him- 
self no courtier of Heaven. 

And 'tho now I am single, yet I believe that this translation of 
faith without death will be general, before the general change Paul 
speaks of shall come. And that then, and not before, shall be the 
resurrection of the just, which is called the ^first resurrection. And 
after that the dead so arisen, with the living then alive, shall have 
learnt this faith, which shall qualify them to be caught up together 
in the air, then shall the general resurrection of the dead be. After 
which time shall be no more. 



109 

But I expect that the beginning of this faith (like all other parts 
of the Kingdom of Heaven) will be like a grain of mustard-seed, 
spreading itself by degrees, till it overshadow the whole earth. 

And since the things concerning him must have an end, in order 
to that, they must have a beginning. 

But whoever leads the van, will make the world start; and must 
expect for himself, to walk up and down like Cain with a mark in 
his forehead, and run the gauntlet for an Ishmselite, having every 
man's hand against him, because his hand is against every man. 
Than which nothing is more averse to my temper. 

And this makes me think of publishing, with as much regret as 
he that ran away from his errand when sent to Niniveh. But being 
just going to cross the water, I dare not leave this behind me un- 
done, lest a tempest send me back again to do it. And to shelter 
myself a little, ('tho I know my speecli would betray me) I left the 
title page anonymous. Nor do I think that anything would now 
extort my name from me, but the dread of the sentence : " He that 
is ashamed of me, and of my words, before men, of him will I be 
ashamed before my Father and his angels." For fear of which, I 
dare not but subscribe my argument, tho' with a trembling hand — 
having felt two powers within me all the while I have been about 
it : one bids me write, and the other bobs my elbow. 

But since I have wrote this, as Pilate did his inscription, without 
consulting any one thing else about it, I'll be as absolute in mine as 
he was in his: '• What I have written, I have written." And after 
this I'll never WTite again, but spend the residue of my days in 
action — contrary to the regular profession of religion. 

And, having pursued that command, " Seek first the Kingdom of 
God," I yet expect the performance of that promise, " To receive in 
this life an hundred-fold, and in the world to come life everlasting." 

I have a great deal of business yet in this world, without doing 
of which Heaven itself would be uneasy to me. And, therefore, do 
depend that I shall not be taken hence in the midst of my days 
before I have done all my heart's desire. 

But when that is done, I know no business I have with the dead, 
and, therefore, do as much depend that I shall not go hence by re- 
turning: to the dust — which is the sentence of that law from which I 



no 

claim a discharge — but that I shall make my exit by way of trans- 
lation ; which I claim as a dignity belonging to that degree in the 
science of eternal life of which I profess myself a graduate, 
according to the true intent and meaning of the Covenant of Eternal 
Life revealed in the Scriptures. 
I And if, after this, I die like other men, I declare myself to die of 
no religion. 

And in this, let no one be concerned for me as a desperade. For 
I am not going to renounce the other parts of our religion, but to 
add another article of faith to it, without which I can't understand 
the rest. 

And if I lose this additional article, by failing in this attempt, I 
have as much religion left still as they that pity me. 

Nor have I in all this spoken presumptuously, or from fancy; 
having said nothing but what he that made me said before me. And 
if it be possible to believe too much in God, I desire to be guilty of 
that sin. 

I dread no hell but the sentence prepared against them that 
despise the gospel : " Behold ! ye despisers, and wonder and perish." 
Behold what ? Behold, " Men coming from the east, and from the 
west, to sit down in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves shut 
out." Shut out from what ? To be shut out from virtue and holi- 
ness, justice and truth, perhaps would be no uneasiness to us all ; 
but to be shut out from an eternal draught of an eternal stream of 
love, from the marriage feast of the King's Son, from the view of 
his bride adorned in her glory, and from all the joys of nuptials for 
ever, this will be a torment, created by man to himself through 
unbelief, beyond the exquisition of tyrants, or the exquisition of 
devils. 

It seems conceivable that man by his change into the other 
world, will not lose any species of his present affections, or have any 
new ones added to them ; but that all those passions which are now 
begun in him, will there increase upon him forever: ''He that 
is holy, let him be holy still ; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy 
still." 

And then, 'tlio man cannot now conceive by what objects his • 
passions or affections will be thus argumented, yetj by his present 



Ill 

feeling of tlieiii, lie may conceive the nature, 'tlio not the perfec- 
tion, of his future joys or torments. 

Did you ever feel a fit of envy? Multiply that by thousands till 
you want a name of number, and then call that the thousandth 
thousandth part of one of the torments of hell ! 

Did you ever feel a iiang of love f Spend your days in Algebra, 
and carry on the account of it to Heaven, and there add to that 
for ever, till your desire fail, and you'll never begin to sum the 
total ! 

All life is motion, and therefore cannot be eternal without an 
eternal motion. For whenever it comes to stagnate, the patient rots, 
and stinks and dies. 

The most pleasant enjoyments being kept long in our hands pall 
our appetites to them. And, hence, the smallest addition to what 
we had before, seems greater riches to us than all our former 
possessions. And every new thought that falls into our studies, 
proves a greater diversion to us than all our former knowledge. 

Now in all inventions of men towards perpetuity of motion, 
they never attempt anything beyond a circle, which moving itself 
by rotation comes to the same place again. . 

But the motion calculated for the maintenance of eternal life, is 
made to move in a direct ascent for ever; in every reach of which 
we see, and taste, and feel what we never did before: "The 
water that I shall give him, shall be a spring of living water, rising 
up to everlasting life." 

But behold, ye despisers, and wonder! Wonder at what ? Wonder, 
to see Paradise lost, with the Tree of Life in the midst of it. Wonder, 
and curse at Adam for an original fact, who, in the length of one 
day, never so much as thought to put forth his hand, for him. and us, 
and pull, and eat, and live for ever. Wonder at and damn ourselves 
for fools of the last impression, that in the space of seventeen hun- 
dred years never so much as thought to put forth our hands, every 
one for himself, and seal and execute the Covenant of Eternal Life, 
and live for ever ! 

But behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish ! Perish, how ? 
Why perish under the same malice against the Son of God for ever: 
'' They blasphemed God, and yet repented not to give him glory;" being 



112 

concluded under unbelief, from the day of adjournment of time into 
eternity, proclaimed by the last of the seven heralds of angels, who, 
" setting his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot upon the earth, 
lifted up his hand to heaven, and swore by Him that lives for ever, 
that time should be no longer." 



And now bear with me a little, while I prepare myself for being 
shown as a monster. 

'Tis no news for believers and unbelievers to be the admiration 
of one another. They wondered at his works, and he marvelled at 
their unbelief : '' And this is a marvellous thing, that ye know not 
whence he is, who hath opened the eyes of one born blind." There- 
fore, to be even with the world at once, he that wonders at my faith, 
I wonder at his unbelief. And stare at me as long as you will, I am 
sure that neither my physiognomy, sins, nor misfortunes, can make 
me look so unlikely to be translated as my Redeemer was to be 
hanged. And 'tho, perhaps, I may be the sport of some, yet I can't 
but think and say again, that, whoever is designed for happiness 
will meet with some of that pleasure in reading which I have had 
in writing; and whoever are not so appointed, no one can lament 
them more than I do. Nor can I think how any man that is right 
in his religion, can be wrong in his morals, which are all set to right 
in him, as an incident to his faith. 

The blood of Christ hath an incident quality, which cleanseth 
from sin. But this quality is subsequent and accidental to that 
legal sanction, and first appointment of it, to take away the law of 
death. And he that understands this aright, never makes any use 
of his own personal virtues as an argument for his own salvation ; 
lest God should overbalance against him with his sins. Nor doth God 
ever object a man's own personal sins to him in the day of his faith; 
because Christ had no credit given him for his personal holiness in 
the day of his death. And, therefore, till I am more sinful than he 
was holy, my sins are no objection against my faith. And because 
in him is all my hope, I care not almost what I am myself. 



118 

This I know from abroad, that, Wisdom is better than folly : 

Earnest, than jest: 

Love, than hatred: 

Riches, than poverty: 

Health, than sickness: 

A virtuous woman, than a whore: 

And, an honest man, than a knave. 
And when now and then I cast my eyes within me, 1 thank God 
I find cruelty, covetousness and envy departed from me. I can't 
envy a man of merit, because "the laborer is worthy of his hire." 
And as long as I maintain a perfect friendship with myself, I can be 
no more a rival to another placed above his desert, than a beautiful 
female is to one of her own sex, harder favored and finer dressed. 
And as I thus envy no man, I can't think myself big enough for 
any one to envy me. But if they do, I keep an answer wdthin my 
conscience to all the hatred and malice of man against me: '' They 
hate me without a cause." Besides this, I say no more to any one 
concerning religion or morality either. And if any one hath ought 
of either to say to me, whenever they shall please to make that as 
public as I have done this, I'll read it. But what they shall not 
think worth their writing, I shall not think worth my hearing. 

It is observed in the mathematics, that the practice doth not 
always answer the theory. And that, therefore, there is no depen- 
dance upon the mere notions of it, as they lie in the brain, without 
putting them together in the form of a tool or instrument, to see 
how all things fit. Upon which, whole sets of thoughts have been 
lost, and the student set at large again. And this made me distrust 
my own thoughts till I had put them together to see how they 
would look in the form of an argument. But in doing of this I 
thank God I have found every joint and article to come into its own 
place, and fall in with, and suit one another to a hair's breadth 
beyond my expectation. Or else I could not have had the confidence 
to produce this as an engine in divinity, to convey man from earth 
to Heaven. And, to give every one their due, this advantage I have 
had by Enoch and Elijah: that 'tho neither of them have left the 
form of their faith behind them, yet their doing the thing before 
me heartened me on to study out the invention myself. And as I 



114 

never did, nor will, desire any man to confine himself to my under- 
standing; so, in making tins inquiry, I have set no bounds to my 
thoughts, but the very word of revelation, without regarding the 
opinion of other men about it. Not but that there are flights in 
other sciences that seem as extravagant to vulgar apprehensions as 
this doth, and yet they are evincible by demonstration. 

Every bungler can do business with bustling and main 
strength, but the perfection of science is to do the hardest things 
with the least labor. 

A mathematician, by a right position of his power at a due 
distance from the center, will move a weight by the force of one 
hand, which five hundred men heaving at it all together close upon 
the center can't stir. And according to this art, it cannot be denied 
that the whole weight of this terrestrial globe is moveable by the 
strength of a hair, and the force of a man's breath, only by getting 
far enough off from the center before he gives the puff. And "the 
this can't be done by man for want of a place thus to stand in, yet 
the demonstration of it to our understanding, causes us to adore the 
wisdom and happiness of the Architect of Nature and Ruler 
of the World, who sitting upon the heavens, can rein the 
earth with a twined thread. And this prompts us to believe that 
God can do other impossible things, and teach man to do them too: 
'' He that belie vetli on me shall do greater works than these." Not 
by his own labor, but by putting the labor-oar upon Gfod. 

Men may dig and carry till their hearts ache to remove a moun- 
tain ; but the engine of faith draws down the power of Grod, which 
removes it all at once. 

I am not making" myself wings to fly to Heaven with, but only 
making myself ready for that conveyance which shall be sent me. 
In which I don't pretend any privilege above other men that are or 
will be ready with me ; which it seems they say themselves they 
are not, nor shall be, till the resurrection at the last day. But 
remember that Samuel came up in his old mantle, which makes me 
think you'll return much as you went. 

However, let us part friends, and every one make the best of his 
way. And if I should lose myself in this untrodden path of life, I 
can still find out the beaten road of death blindfold. And as I 



115 

would not allure any man, woman or cliild, to venture themselves 
witli me till they see my success: so their company would do me 
no good, for every one must attain it by their own faith. And if 
this faith will do, I have it; and if it will not do in me, it will not 
do in them — for God is no respecter of persons. And yet had I a 
mind to juggle, I would not put the decision upon so blunt a point. I 
can write, and talk too, as soft as other men: With submission to 
Ibetter judgements. And, Heave it to you, gentlemen. I am hut one, 
and 1 always distrust myself. I only hint my thoughts. You'll 
please to consider whether you icill not think that it may seem to 
deserve your consideration. 

This is a taking way of speaking, but much good may do them 
that use it. I don't desire to take it from them ; 'tlio 'tis the safest 
way, because there can be no advantage taken of it to do themselves 
any hurt — nor any one else any good. But as I have more respect 
for myself than to trouble the world with common discourses, so I 
have more reverence for mankind than to hazard the meanest figure 
of it with any novelty but what I will first pawn my life to try the 
truth or falsehood of it. And 'tho I do own that the very daring 
of this essay is too great an honor for me to be guilty of, yet I know 
there is that gratitude left in man, that since I am willing to take 
the shame of my own mistake, they will not begrudge me the result 
of my success. If, therefore, as I have said before, after this, I go 
the way of my fathers, I freely wave that haughty epitath : 

" Magnis tcunen excidit Auslsy 

And, instead of that, knock under table that Satan hath beguiled me 
to play the fool with myself; in which, however, he hath shewed his 
master-piece; for I defy the whole clan of Hell to form another lie 
so like to truth as this is. 

But if I act my motto, and go the way of an eagle in the air, 
then I have played a trump upon death, and shewn myself a match 
for the devil. 

And while I am thus fighting with death and hell, it looks a 
little like foul play for flesh and blood to interpose themselves 
against me. 



116 

But, if any one hath spite enough to give me a polt, thinking 
to falsify my faith, by taking away my life, I only desire them 
first to qualify themselves for my executioners by taking this 
short test in their own consciences : 

Whoever thinks that any thing herein contained is not fair 
dealing with God and man, and giving the devil himself his due, 
let him, or her, burn this book, and cast a stone at him that wrote it. 



J. ASGILL. 



c-Q^^)^ 



N 



OTES. 



118 



NOTES. 



Page 59. — ''If it he His that I think it is, it will kindle" etc. 

The spirit of this martyred author may, as we think, have viewed 
his words, written here, as fulfilled, when, in the eternal world, he 
became aware that in " the fulness of time," (1866), the doctrine that 
he taught took fire again, and was in that year, in the Umpire City, 
(New York), — and that because it was rejected by the Archbishop of 
Dublin, especially, and, generally, by all the prelates of the Irish 
Church at home, — brought out as a truth, on totally independent 
grounds, by one who had never heard of John Asgill or his views. 
In fact, the present editor first heard of Asgill in the month of July, 
1873 — above six years after he had done his work of testimony in 
America: and there, because he was rejected and refused a hearing 
in Ireland. He might add, in England, too. Although the Estimable 
Primate the Most Reverend Doctor Lonoley, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, was not compromised by the refusal. Had it depended on 
him, I should have been heard. He, himself, told me that he had 
applied by letter to Doctor Christopher Wordsworth, one of the 
Canons of Westminster, now Bishop of Lincoln, to hear me ; but 
Dr. W. pleaded other duties, and so declined. I had, previously, 
written myself to Canon WORDSWOiiTH to intreat a hearing, but in 
vain. So did I do in the case of Cannon Melvill, with whom I had 
several interviews, but without effect. I, also, sought to be heard 
at length by the present Dean Stanley, whom I saw on the subject: 
but likewise in vain at Westminster Abbey, at the Deanery, in the 
Cloisters. However, I acquit the English Clergy — I was '' only Irish: " 
it was not their bounden duty to attend to me. And, branded as I was 
by the guilt of having smitten popery — then in the ascendant— in the 
person of Father Maguire, they were almost excusable in fearing 



Ill) • 

identification with such a person. And, so, the guilt rests upon 
the Irish Church — prelacy and clergy. Now, in reality, it was the 
inspiration of that Church, as will be seen in the memoir, which ex- 
pelled ASGILL from Parliament. I am now, and was then, perfectly 
certain that if the Archbishop of Dublin had given me a hearing, he 
might have said to Mr. Gladstone, when he threatened the Irish 
Church with dis-establishment, " Take heed what you do I You 
do not know what the Church is, or what its latent power. We have 
now the most distinguished Clergyman of our body under examina- 
tion, and have reason to think that the Church is within reach of 
supernatural powers that will enable it to perpetuate life, raise the 
dead and heal the sick. In short, do all the works of Christ ; and 
greater works than those which on earth he was pleased to do. There- 
fore, in dissociating such a body from the State, you will take action 
against the best interests of the people." Xow had the Archbishop, 
as a Peer of the Realm, spoken thus, Gladstone must have paid 
attention to him, and would, I doubt not, have done so; and, we may 
be sure he would thus have been estopped in his very questionable 
proceedings. But it was not to be. The Irish Church led to Asgill's 
expulsion from Parliament : and the Irish Prelates must be visited 
for the transgression — in getting themselves expelled from the 
House of Lords — for rejecting the messenger who had been Divinely 
raised to bring before them the very i^rinciple which — although the 
fact was then utterly unknown to him — John Asgill had, nearly two 
hundred years before, announced; and had been expelled from Par- 
liament for announcing. 

All must be abased before the Throne of God at such a view of 
the marvels accomplished by an over-ruling Providence, and exclaim, 
in a feeling of adoration, " What hath God wrought : to Him alone 
be the glory ! " 



Page 60. — "Wliy, tktn, if I have as good a faith for this purpose as he 
had," etc. 

Yes ; but, by your leave, good Mr. Asgill, the " faith " of Enoch, 
of which St. Paul wrote, led Enoch to that " walk with God " of 
wMcli Moses wrote. And both the "faith" and the ''walk" were 



120 

necessary to the translation. Enoch walked with Gfod : that is, they 
both walked together. Now, how can two walk together except they 
be agreed? God walked with Enoch exceptionally; but, God was 
not to walk with the redeemed children of men regularly, until '' the 
Kingdom of God " should come. And, since it was not the fulness 
of the time for its coming when AsGiLL wrote, therefore, that re- 
markable man was before the time by little less than two hundred 
years — exactly, from the date of his book, one hundred and sixty -six 
years — and, so, he did not himself attain that to which he so anxiously 
looked forward. However, in the downfall of the Irish Establish- 
ment he has been avenged. While the smallest benefice in that 
Church — from which his message emanated — has been exempted 
from the degradation and loss of either dis-endowment or dis- 
establishment. 



Page Q2.—"Ante obit am/' etc. 

[Call no mau happy while he breathes the breath 
Of life— wait till he pass the gates of death.] 

" IVow, the assertion " etc. 
While the Parliament in Dublin, made short work with Mr 
AsGiLL — condemning with a unanimous vote his book as blasphem- 
ous and subversive of society — the Parliament in Westminister, had 
some divisions as to the condemnation of the author and his book, and 
specified eleven passages which were particularly chargeable with 
the oflience of blasphemy: which was, however, imputed to the whole 
work. Of these passages the first was the above clause, saying that 
the magnetic infiuence of the Gospel in drawing followers was what 
AsGiLL called the promise of perpetual, or eternal life. He replied 
to the charge by asking them to read the two next paragraphs, in 
which our Saviour's own disciples, when asked whether they also 
would leave him, replied, by saying, that his promise of eternal life 
made this impossible : " Lord, to whom should we go ? Thou hast 
the words of eternal life/' 



Page 62. — "Then was he an impostor/' etc. 

This was the second Passage that Parliament condemned; alleging 
that our author called Christ an impostor ! His answer, of course, 



121 

was, that, so far from thus injuriously speaking of him, his language 
was actually intended to show that it was impossible to view him as 
such. 



Page 6S. — "Custom itself , without a reason for it, is an argument only 
to fools,'' etc. 

This is, unquestionably, a sound position. But it might have 
been exploded by saying that the custom of death had in it a valid 
reason. The death of the Apostles, who, had it been possible, would 
have escaped death, but, since it was not possible, died, shows that 
the custom of death was reasonable. And, it might have been added, 
was then inevitable too: for it was '' appointed unto men once to die." 
Xow, however, we plead that this is no longer so. Why ? Because, 
according to Paul's own words, it was a prophesy '' in part,'' and it 
was to be done away when that which should be " perfect had 
come." {See 1 Cor. IS: 10). Xow the Message of Life, which I offer, 
is that which is perfect. How so ? Because, (i). It was brought out at 
1866, which was the fullness of the time. (^^). Within 1866, the 
Message was completed, and sealed with a valid testimony — on the 
80th Dec, 1866, one day within the limit. (3). It was brought out 
by a legitimate messenger, a duly authorized minister of the Church 
of Ireland, and in conformity with all the laws, ecclesiastical and 
civil, of a christian State : and, then, in the presence of monarch- 
men — for every American citizen is an heir presumptive to the throne 
of the government of the country. Xow, it was the death of Christ 
after his preaching and after his establishment of the Church, and 
it was the subsequent preaching of that Church, during an epoch 
that counted 1866 years, and it was the action of a minister out of 
the Irish Church, (one of the most ancient in Christendom), that led 
to this, and took the needful action on it. And what was the result ? 
Why the result was, that that minister with his parochial charge was 
providentially made an exception to the degradation and the injury 
which, in about the period -of three or four years afterwards, fell 
upon the whole Irish Church besides. The numerous circumstances 
which show that a special Providence wrought for this message are 
most remarkable, and shall be noticed at the proper place. 



122 

Page (yQ. — ''Aral that yet he omitted tlvis too,'' etc. 

Now, I venture to submit, that, this does not follow. It is highly 
probable that he did take of the tree of life and did eat of its fruit. 
And why ? Because it was not forbidden. Nay, it is possible that 
it may have been commanded: that he may have been told that in 
the fruit of that tree there was a virtue that would sustain life, and 
that in order to preserve life, that fruit should be made use of con- 
tinually, and that if he ceased to use it he would die. And if we 
consider the words of Genesis 3:22-3, we shall find that they sustain 
this view The words are, "And the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man 
is become as one of us, to know good and evil : ' and now, least he put 
forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for 
ever : therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden , 
to till the ground from tohence he loas taken.'' Now, I submit, that 
the words may have this sense, and that without the slightest wrest- 
ing of their sense, viz.: "And now, also, lest he should stretch out his 
hand and hy taking of the tree of life, and eating, live forever: there- 
fore he drove him from the garden.'" I repeat the words may have 
this force ; nay, they might possibly be so pointed as that this should 
be their actual grammatical force. For the Hebrew for '' take'' and 
for " eat," might be so pointed as to be the simple participles of their 
respective verbs, and if so, the above would be the legitimate render- 
ing of the verse. The verb in every language has this kind of fre- 
quentative sense. Thus, when we say, '' Believe in the Lord Jesus 
Christ and thou shalt be saved," the meaning is, have faith in Christ 
and constantly exercise it, and thou shalt be saved. The sacred 
writer does not mean to say, " exercise faith in the Lord Jesus Christ 
even once and thou shalt live ; for having once exercised that faith 
thou shalt have passed from death unto life, and shalt live forever." 
That surely is not the meaning, but the true meaning is, " Believe in 
the Lord Jesus Christ, and continue to exercise that faith hencefor- 
ward, and thou shalt be saved." And it would appear to me that in 
such a sense the words in Genesis 3:2^, should be taken. The 16th 
verse of the preceding chapter {the Second) deserves consideration: 
it runs thus in the original, ' 'And the Lord God commanded upon the 
man, (that is, as it were, put his commandment upon him), saying, 



'From ecery tree in the garden eating thou shalt eat, hut of the tree of 
knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou 
eateat of it dieing thou shalt die.'' (That is, "thou shalt surely die.'') 
Now, since one tree alone was excepted, and since the tree of life 
was of special excellence, the probability is tlmt that was specially 
partaken of while he had the chance and opportunity — that oppor- 
tunity was taken from him when he was turned out of the garden, 
and the Cherubims, with the flaming sword which turned away, were 
posted to keep the way of the tree of life. I may take the occasion 
to remark that it is essentially the same Hebrew word, which is an 
acknowledged and undeniable participle (or verbal adjective) in the 
last cited verse, (Genesis 2: 16), which is employed in chapter 3: 22. 
The indubitable principle which recognizes in the tree of life the 
antetype of Him who was the True Fi'/^e, and vvhose flesh and blood 
are the meat and drink of his people, conferring immortality, may 
convince us that it was the constant use of the tree of life, and not a 
single participation of its fruit, (as our author supposes), that would 
lead to the eternal life spoken of in Genesis 3: 22. 



Page 72. — ''They were all against Mm, because God was against 
him," etc. 

The clause ending thus constituted the third passage condemned as 
blasphemous by the English House of Commons. One is astonished 
at reading the plain truths which were condemned as outrageous 
blasphemy, by a Chamber of Senators zealous for God — but not ac- 
cording to knowledge. Our author, in his reply, boldly repeated the 
objectionable statement. Saying, that, God was indeed against him: 
and was so determined and resolved on the eternal sacrifice of his 
own son, that all the powers in heaven and earth could not effectually 
oppose it. The additional objections made to our author's words 
were equally void of validity. But, as we have sufl&ciently set them 
forth elsewhere, we need not make them the subject of observation 
in these Notes. 



Page 89. — '' Why because, man knows not the icay of life," etc. 

This answer would be perfectly valid at the present day, if it 



124 

were applied to explain the death of men generally now ; because the 
way of life has been announced, and the law of life ascertained suf- 
ficiently. But the answer w^as certainly insufficient in Mr. Asgill's 
day. He evidently labored under the idea that because the death of 
Christ had paid the price of a complete recovery from all the con- 
sequences of the fall, therefore, it was because of want of light to 
see this, and want of courage to plead it and act upon it, men con- 
tinued to die. Had this been so, Asgill would be alive himself this 
day. For his whole life and this book are sufficient to prove that he 
neither lacked light nor courage. His answer was therefore invalid. 
The Bible does indeed prove that Christ paid the price of a full atone- 
ment for the fall, but subject to a condition that it should not be 
available for the full possession of the kingdom until a time discover- 
able from the Bible: which time "the Father had put in his own 
power," {Acts, 1:7); a day and an hour known neither to angels nor 
archangels, nor to the Son, but to the Father only. (Mark, 13:32). 
And yet, it was hidden in the scriptures throughout ; but so hidden 
there, so bound up with an unobserved numerical power in the letters 
of the consecrated tongues, without respect to which the sacred pen- 
men wrote, that in their utterances they unwittingly gave the dates of 
times, and the numbers of names of which they themselves knew 
nothing. The providence of God was, nevertheless, so overruling 
events as to make them all the time re-echo and bring out the oracles 
of Grod. How little did John Asgill know that his own name clearly 
foreshowed him as a forerunner of the true ''Bride, the Lamb's 
wife," {see JRev. 19 : 7), who should, in due time, make herself ready 
for scriptural cooperation with her Lord and Master Christ. — {See 
Psalm Jf5 : 10, in the Hebrew). His reasoning here then is important 
as applicable to a fuller message than his was. 



Page 93. — ''The text runs double^' etc. 

With all respect to our author, he both garbles this text and 
misunderstands it. The exact words of our Lord are: ''I am the 

resurrection, and the life : he that Ifcliemth in me, though he ham died, 
shall live : and ichosoever liveth, and lelieveth in me, shall never die,'' 



125 

(more exactly, ''Shall not die at the age,'' i.e., at ''that age.'' — See 
Luke, 20 : 35; John, 11 : 25, 26). The duplex statement of the text 
is, (1) Those who have died believing in a coming Christ, (as Abra- 
ham and the Patriarchs, David and the Prophets), shall rise from the 
dead, and live again. (2) Whosoever liveth, when I am fully revealed, 
as the Saviour of the body, in the fulness of the times, and shall 
then walk with God, according to the law of life to be then disclosed, 
shall never die. I venture to submit that our Lord's words included 
a latent explanation, such as is here given — that the whole scripture 
contemplated a fuller announcement of the Divine will at the day of 
judgement, and the fulfilment of conditions for the obtainment of 
literal immortality, that were not essential or necessary under the 
gospel of free grace and mere promise. I may add here, that the 
original Greek in the phrase " that age," which in the authorized 
version is rendered " never," included the very date of the age — the 
60th decade of the 19th century — 1861 1 



Page 96. — '' What then is death ; or whereunto serveth it? " etc. 

I think I may pronounce our author's explanation here very in- 
complete ; and declare more fully what is but little if at all known, 
that death is the true purgatory of the sinful and fallen body, and 
the real substance of the pagan ideal of purgatory that the Pontifex 
Maximus of Rome has succeeded in preserving, and very gainfully 
utilizing, as a Christian Institution. The body leaves all vileness in 
the grave, and will thence issue, upon due action to be taken by the 
Church, purged and purified as a glorious and immortal being. That 
has been the object of death, and the service it had rendered heretofore; 
but, hereafter, the discovery of that law of walking with God, which 
preceded translation in the case of Enoch, and, I doubt not, in the 
case of Elijah too, having been exceptionally made known to them 
both, will be an essential character of the new dispensation, and it 
will accomplish that change in the living body, and lead to translation; 
which has, heretofore, been only to be reached through the dissolu- 
tion of the dead body in the grave. And, perhaps, this is the proper 
place to offer the remark that the disposal of the dead by Cremation 



is most certainly not merely opposed to all Scriptural warrant, but is 
such an obvious conformity to pagan custom, as may be connected 
with very serious spiritual danger. If we are to be guided in all 
religious action by the example and precepts of the bible, we shall 
seek in vain in its pages for a warrant for the burning of the dead. 
Paul speaks of the buried bodies of the faithful as seed sown; and 
since we should look in vain for crops of wheat, or barley, or rye, 
or any other grain, if we burned the seed, instead of burying it in the 
soil, the analogy should lead us to think that cremation would be no 
very hopeful way of disposing of our dead. 



Page 103. — " Bust thou art, and unto dust slialt thou return,'" etc. 

In promulgating my views as to the certainty of translation 
instead of death, there is no text that seems so plenary as an objec- 
tion, as this, taken from Genesis 3 : 19. The answer, however, is 
obvious : it is, as the children of the First Adam, we are dust. And 
so long as we are nourished on grass — either vegetarian or fleshy — 
so long the sentence will stand in force against us that to dust we 
must return. But if we be born again from the Second Adam, who 
is not dust, and if our bodies are so acted upon, by a law of life that 
keeps us constantly occupied with a Sacrificial Worship, in which 
we walk with God, and take in of the spiritual flesh and blood of 
Jesus as our food and drink, we shall gradually become transformed 
to his glorious messianic nature, and cease to be dust ; and thus not 
having come from dust, we shall have no reason, nor indeed any pos- 
sibility of returning to it. As our true father will be the Lord from 
heaven, and as we shall be transformed into his nature, we may go 
direct to heaven ; or rather heaven will come to us — for the heaven 
of believers is a regenerated ''world to come," vastly different from 
the present. It would be in contravention of reason itself that 
when our bodies had by a second birth from a Second Adam, who 
was not dust, and though a process of gradual translation into his 
nature, which was calculated to lead to the gradual deposition of 
every particle of the dust that we derived from our first birth, we 
should then, after all, be resolved into the dust of the lower nature 
which we had actually put off altogether. 



fA 



V 



INISTERIAL ESTIMONY. 



135) 



THE LATTER DAY REVELATIOX OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, 
DELIVERED IX 1866. 




Ipijx Instrument of Ministerial Testimony, completed in 

THE presence OF THREE CONaREGATIONS, CONVENED TO 
1 lir AND ASSEMBLED FOR DiVINE WORSHIP IN ArGUS HaLL, 

600 Broadway, JSTew York, on December SOtli, 1866, by the 
Rev. Dr. Tresham D. Gregg, Chaplain of St. Nicholas Within, 
Dublin, Ireland. 

M Tresham Dames Gregg, Doctor in Sacred Theology, Presbyter of 
the Church of Ireland, and Chaplain of St. Nicholas Within, Dublin, 
thus a benefice Clergyman of the United Church of England and 
Ireland, in due and full connection with the Church, to all persons, 
both present and future, do hereby testify and declare that, having 
for above a quarter of a century devoted myself to the constant study 
of the original Scriptures, I was led to ascertain and demonstrate the 
soundness of certain great points of theology not previously, that I 
am aware of, brought before the Church. Two of these, in especial, 
I made the grounds of solemn petition to the Convocation of Canter- 
bury in England, and to the two houses of Convention of the Protest- 
ant Episcopal Church of America — those two points alluded to, 
being — 

1st. That the host of the mass in the Church of Rome was the 
ultimate " Abomination of Desolation," spoken of by Daniel the Pro- 
phet; and, 

2dly. That the worship of the Christian Church should be 
expressly sacrificial. 



130 

My prayer to tlie Synods of tlie Cliurclies of America and of tlie 
United Cliurcli of England and Ireland being that they should 
examine into the reasoning on which these positions rested, and act 
accordingly. But as the petitions tlius alluded to are in print, 
and very fully expressive of the views set forth, I do not think my- 
self called on here to say more on the subject than to express a hope 
that they may be carefully read and pondered on. 

Having visited the United States in 1861, and sojourned here till 
1862, I was then led to think it my duty to publish a version of the 
English and American Book of Common Prayer, that was entitled, 
" Ad Interim — the Order for Morning and E'Gening Sacrifice through- 
out the Tear submitted to the Church.'' This book was published in 
New York and Philadelphia. I presented copies of it to several of 
the American bishops, and fifty copies to the two houses of Conven- 
tion. To this publication I referred in my petitions to tlie Conven- 
tion, and mentioned the fact of my presentation of these copies in my 
petitions. The presentation of the petitions was undertaken for by 
the Rev. Dr. De Wolfe Howe, of Philadelphia, a clergyman of the 
highest character; and I conclude, therefore, that they were pre- 
sented, although he has not expressly informed me that they were. 
During my former visit to this country I took no further action in 
reference to this matter. 

But in the present year, 1866, divers causes, which I esteemed as 
most providential in their character, moving me thereunto, I embarked 
for the United States at Liverpool on February the 21st, and arrived in 
New York on the 7th of March, and, having announced my intention 
in the public papers and otherwise, I solemnized the Morning Sacri- 
fice, with choral accompaniments as full as I could command, on Easter 
Sunday morning in Clinton Hall, Astor place, assisted by a large 
congregation, and using as my ordinal the aforementioned book. 

Subsequently I saw my way to no congregational action in this 
direction, though anxiously seeking for it, until Michselmas, on 
which day (the 29tli September) I announced in the public papers 
that I had taken Argus Hall, No. 600 Broadway, for the last Sunday 
in September and for the whole month of October for Sunday ser- 
vices. I was enabled to do likewise for the months of November and 
December; and, therefore, during the Sundays of these last three 



131 

months of this year — viz., the last in September, and during October, 
November, and December of 1866 — I have on every such Lord's Day 
solemnized divine services sacrificially morning and evening, and 
occasionally also in the afternoon, before congregations as numerous 
as, under the circumstances, I could expect, preaching on the occa- 
sion of each service in exposition and enforcement of Grospel verity 
in general, but especially of the more novel points brought forward 
in my petitions to the Churches both of America and of the United 
Church of England and Ireland. 

That in those petitions I stated that the principles which I had 
opened from the book of Daniel and other scriptures were clavicular 
in their character and sure to open the way to dark mysteries of the 
Christian religion that, had been '' shut up and sealed to the time of 
the end ; " and that my experience since the drawing-up of my peti- 
tions — viz., four years since — most remarkably confirmed during 
those three months' congregational services (or, more properly, pre- 
sentations of the sacrifice) in Argus Hall, has forcibly verified this 
statement; and, I now feel myself called upon by solemn duty to God, 
to the Church, and to the world at large, to set forth in an articular 
manner the chief conclusions of this nature at which I have arrived, 
and which I suppose myself, and^ have been acknowledged by others 
to have demonstrated in the course of my sermons, and that to the 
satisfaction of my hearers. 

1. That there is latent in the true sacrifice of the Church, as I 
have explained and used it, a virtue which, if habitually and con- 
stantly employed, will perpetuate the life of believers so as that they 
shall not die, but gradually partake of a divine vitality that will 
recuperate and renew their physical as w^ell as their spiritual nature, 
so that translation, as in the cases of Enoch and Elijah, and not 
death, shall either be the finale of their earthly existence, or else so 
as that they shall continue to live on earth with ever-increasing pow- 
ers during the whole of the Millennial period now commencing. 

2, That this virtue in true scriptural, sacrificial worship is avail- 
able for others as well as for believers themselves, enabling belive- 
ers, according to the will of God, to infuse vitality into their breth- 
ren^ whether they be still in the land of the living or sleeping in 



Jesus, as all the faithful do. And thus that believers may and shall 
have a part or a share in bringing about the first resurrection. 

3. That, accordingly, the last or seventh trumpet has now 
sounded, being, like each of the six precedent trumpets, the sound 
of a world-vv^ide principle or message, and not a literal blast of a 
vs^ind instrument, as is commonly supposed ; v^hich last trumpet mes- 
sage, respecting ''the Abomination of Desolation," etc., subverting 
for ever the death-dealing idol of the mass and all its imitations, and 
introducing habitual relations of man toward Deity, whereby man 
drinks in of life for himself and pours out of that life on others, doth 
originate in and implant through man (by the grace of God, through 
Jesus Christ, our Lord) an incipient life that will grow the more 
according as the faith of believers waxes stronger and stronger and 
diffuses itself more and more widely and deeply in the Church. 

4. That sacrificial worship elicits and develops a faculty in man 
hitherto ignored, buried, and hidden, and not only so, but misappre- 
hended, miscalled, and abused — viz : the spirit — and will gradually 
tend to a strengthening and invigoration of the same even to " the 
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ,'' who, through the 
spirit, controlled the elements of wind, air, and water, and annihi- 
lated the attraction of gravitation ; and also wrought effects of a 
wonderful kind at a great distance from his immediate presence. 
That this faculty in man is that through which he sees, and that it 
should only deal mentally with great realities, especially Scriptural 
realities, as God, heaven, angels, etc. ; whereas it has been allowed 
to degenerate into what is called ''the imagination," to be used as 
the mere plaything of the intellect and to deal almost exclusively 
with lies and vanity, or to grovel amid loathsome or subtle impuri- 
ties ; that man, habituated through true sacrificial worship as his 
own priest to deal with the great things of Scripture, will gradually 
grow to be not only a wonderously holy and righteous being, but 
one fraught with the divine essence to such a degree as that he shall 
do the great things of Christ, or " greater than these," because 
Christ " hath gone to the Father." 

5. That Christ calls himself " the Alpha and the Omega," not only 



138 

in the commonly accepted sense of "the first and the last," but also 
from reference to a latent faculty in the sacred Hebrew tongue, 
through which the Hebrew Scriptures are subject to a law of 
development cognizable by the learned, although by them carelessly 
and contemptuously overlooked as cabalistic, notwithstanding its 
undoubted usage by Jeremiah and perhaps other of the prophets ; 
through which law of development dark passages of the prophets, 
otherwise quite unintelligible, may be showed to be pregnant with 
marvels of evangelical light and ecclesiastical wisdom. That thus, 
and otherwise also, the Bible will at last be found to be a repertory 
of full remedies for all moral evils, whether individual, domestic, 
social, or political ; and not only so, but to contain prescriptions for 
perpetuating life in true and loyal believers, and for raising the dead 
in Christ — those " who sleep in Him," and have so slept for ages — 
such function now demonstrably appertaining to the Church at least 
in due measure and according to the Divine will. 

6. That '' saints' days" were originally set apart for efforts to 
awaken the dead in Christ, so as that they might come to life again 
in order to inherit " the kingdom prepared for them from the 
foundation of the world ; " but that the lifeless idol of Antichrist, 
being substituted all through Christendom for the life-giving sacri- 
fice of Calvary, caused these days to degenerate into occasions of 
ceremonials of idolatry, blasphemous in their character as it respected 
Grod, and calculated to postpone forever the resurrection of the just, 
injurious prayers being directed toward them, as already in glory, 
in connection with '' the abomination" of Rome, in place of prayers 
inspired and enforced by the true sacrifice of Calvary and directed to 
the Throne that Christ might come again in his kingdom and bring 
these, his saints, with Him. That during our services in Argus Hall 
the " days " of the Apostles Simon, the Canaanite, and Jude, the 
brother of James, falling on Sunday, 28th of October, we with a 
special " collect " and '' litanical suffrages," thus came to the help of 
these Apostles, and that, in like manner, new services are demanded 
for all such days. 

7. That while I thank God that I was assisted with so much 
success to modify our '' Book of Common Prayer and the adminis- 



134 

t ration of the sacraments " so as that it became fraught with 
'spiritual life and comfort and with elements of spiritual power, I 
have felt throughout how vastly more rich its developments might 
be, but that such developments were properly the work of the whole 
church in Synod assembled, and not of an individual. I consider, 
therefore, that the testimony given to sound principles in our Argus 
Hall presentations of the sacrifice is of much greater importance 
than their concrete expression. Besides I have borne witness before 
hundreds, if not, indeed, thousands, of intelligent persons to great 
principles which confirm the teaching of the Reformation, to the 
effect that at least all Roman Christendom is under the sway of 
Antichrist and uses a worship that blasphemes God, destroys the 
sou], and secures the death of the body, too ; while in no part of 
Protestant Christendom has the great principle of sacrifice been 
developed at all. Acknowledged, indeed, it is as to its institution, 
but it is not practically acted on nor followed out to its results. 
While in the unhappy '' High Church '' section there is an undis- 
guised aping of Roman forms that distinctly indicates how grossly 
ignorant or disposed to deny their mortal nature both priests and • 
people are. 

Now, we proclaim, of all such Romanist or High Church pro- 
clivities .that they imply an affection toward " the Abomination of 
Desolation spoken of by Daniel the Prophet," and verge closely upon 
absolute apostasy from the truth as it is in Jesus. I am convinced 
that, until the worship of the Church becomes, as ours in Argus 
Hall has been, purely and simply sacrificial in the Evangelical sense, 
the sacramental apostasy (which was consumated at Rome) will be 
ever imminent. I further allege that all the Clergy who neglect 
these truths will be answerable for the lives of the people, which 
they might otherwise save, and whom they might lead to immor- 
tality : but these they are now leading, through their ignorance of 
these truths, or indifference to them, to the grave and corruption, to 
putridity and to the worm, and that, when it is in their power to lead 
them to an escape henceforward from the gloomy portals of the 
grave to life and immortality. Having borne my testimony as far as 
in my power lay, and led at least not a few into the way of life, I 
feel, since I can do no niore, that the proper end of my work, so far. 



135 

is a solemn public act of testimony such as I thus make, stating its 
nature and its issue. 

Read three times in the presence of separate congregations in 
Argus Hall, to wit : morning, afternoon and night, on Sunday, 
December 30th, 1866. 

TRESHAM DAMES GREGG, 

Doctor in Sacred Theology, 

AXD 

Chaplain of St. Nicholas Within, Dublin. 



" We, the undersigned, have been present at some, if not all, the 
services solemnized by the Reverend Tkesham D. Gregg, D. D., in 
Argus Hall, 600 Broadway, New York, some of us not having missed 
any of his ministrations; and we do hereby testify that his reasonings 
in support of his great positions have been so entirely Scriptural and 
so sustained by learning and argument that we lia'^e heen conmnced of 
their truth, and believe that until they are generally adopted by the 
whole Church, the world will not reach the glory intended for it and 
promised to the last days. 

Argus Hall, December 30, 1866. 

Signed, 

B. Wm. Ennis, 45 Ann street, 

and by twenty others. 



G<^^^y^ 



EHIXj^TA^. 



Page 9, 


line 12, 


read Westminster 


for Westminister 


• 15, 


'' 29, 


Iminratore 


" Imperato?'s 


" 15, 


'• 30, 


Papatus 


" Papatum 


'' 16, 


'• 14, 


before Mr. Elliott, etc. 


*' before, etc. 


'* 16, 


' 23, 


the decade of the sixties 


" the 60th decade 


'' 19, 


'' 20, 


scarlatina 


scarlatena 


" 22, 


- 35, 


seminal ridus, 


'• seminal growth, 


" 24, 


'' 36, 


' ' conducted any one at the time 


' ' conducted at the time 


" 25, 


'^ 10, 


are owing 


" is owing 


'' 26, 


•' 13, 


" Narcissus 


" Narcisses 


" 27, 


" 33, 


as to speak 


" to speak 


" 28, 


'' 34, 


'' remotion 


" re-motion 


" 29, 


'' 32, 


" tribunals 


" tribunal, 


" 36, 


" 11, 


•' Westminster 


" Westminister 


'' 36, 


" 18, 


" Westminster 


" Westminister 


•' 53, 


•' 16, 


'^ full. 


" fall. 


'^ 54, 


- 14, 


'* omnium 


" omnicum. 


'• 118, 


^- 22, 


'• Canon 


'' Cannon. 


^' 120, 


•• 21, 


Westminster 


" Westminister 


'' 123, 


'• 8, 


everyway 


'• away. 


'' 125, 


" 16, 


the decade of the sixties 


•' the 60th decade 


^' 125, 


" 26, 


has 


" had 


" 129, 


" 11, 


*' beneficed 


" benefice 


" 131, 


'' 34, 


" believers 


" '^ beliveers 



LIST OF THE PRIXCIPAL PUBLICATIOXS FROM THE PEX OF 



1840. 

REPORT OF THE NINE DAYS' DISCUSSION 

Between the Rev. Teesham Dames Gregg, D. D., aud the Late Rev! Thomas 

Maguire, P.p., the Great Champion of the Papacy. 

^ 

The discussion was held in the Round Room of the Rotunda, Dublin, and com- 
menced on May 29th, 1838. The Rev. Edwaed Nagle, Rector of Skreen, and the late 
Rev. Justus^ M'ISTamatia, P. P., of Kinsale, occupying the Chair. 

It was occasioned by a Challenge, addressed in one of his Sermons, to the Clergy 
, generally, by Father Maguire; he being the acknowledged and famous Champion of the 
Church of Rome. 



From the Church of England Gazette. 
The discussion in Dublin between our old friend, the Rev. T. D. Gregg, and Father 
Maguire has terminated; and it is agreed on all hands that the priest of the Ancient 
Catholic Faith has gloriously triumphed over the wily advocate of the new and degrading 
religion known by the name of Popery. The matter will not end with the Dublin dis- 
cussion; it will be followed up, not only in Dublin, but in England, with a power and 
energy which will make Popery quail, and skulk in the dark places of the earth . We 
congratulate Mr. Gregg on the success of his important struggle, and on the feeling 
which has been manifested towards him by his brethren. 

From the Liverpool Standard, 

The discussion has more than realized the most sanguine expectations of tlie friends 
of true and unadulterated Christianity. Day after day did Mr. Gregg meet the cavils 
and demolish the sophistries of his crafty opponent. The sword of truth has proved 
indeed a powerful weapon in the hands of the admirable champion of Protestantism. 
Fears were entertained when he entered the arena witli so accomplished a logician 
and so eloquent a speaker as the doughty priest Maguire ; but we are proud to say that 
Mr. Gregg has proved himself, in every respect, more than a match for his opponent. 

We sincerely hope that the proceedings of this triumphant discussion may shortly 
be published, so as to be accessible to all classes of the community. AVe are sure that 
much good may be done by their dissemination in England. 

Second Notice. 
That Mr. Gregg has acquitted himself with zeal, energy, and talent in the course of 
this protracted discussion, is evident. But who or what has triumphed ? Is it merely 
Mr. Gregg that has achieved a victory over his subtle and crafty opponent ? Is it merely 
the personal triumph of one out of two acute logicians or accomplished scholars? 
No ! It is a far greater victory than this. It is the triumph of the purity of Protest- 
antism over the complicated abominations of Popery. It is the triumph of truth over 
error, and Christian knowledge over sottish superstition— of charity over bigotry— of 
the immutable Word of God over the cunningly-devised fables of the Church of Rome. 
The effects of this glorious victory will be long felt, in Ireland especially, and through- 
out the whole extent of the usurped dominion of the Papacy. A spirit of inquiry has 
been already generated, which cannot but lead to the most satisfactory results. 

From the Londonderry Standard. 
The most extraordinary discussion perhaps ever witnessed— that which recently 
occupied the public mind— has come to a close. A victory more complete we could not 
have wished for. Mr. Gregg proved himself a very David against the Popish Goliah. 
He had no mercy on the appostate Church— he dealt his blows one after another with a 
force and pertinacity which astonished while it stupified his adversary. People could 
scarce believe their ears while the Protestant champion uttered the tremendous truths 
of Christianity before those who only knew them through the mist and shadow of 
Roman dogmatism. It almost appeared as if this brilliant disputant had been raised up 
for the overthrow of Popery in this country ; at least he spoke as if he thought so. His 
denunciationsof the apostate Church and its theologians were terrific. Even in the 
poorest weapon of the controversialist, that of personal sarcasm, he was unmeasurably 
more skillful than his opponent. 

From the Westmeath Guardian. 
The issue of the contest between the two Churches will naturally benefit the cause of 
truth, and should be hailed with satisfaction and delight by every friend of civil and 
religious liberty. Mr. Maguire left the field in possession of his opponent. He was 
foiled in argument, defeated in all his false positions, and driven out of all his 
resources. 



■ The Notices of all the contemporaneous Church of England Papers were of the 
same character. 



MEDE'S APOSTASY OF THE LATTER TIMES. 

With an Introductory Essay on the Proper Mode of Maintaining the Roman Catholic 

Controversy. 

This work was published before the Discussion with Father Maguire, and propounded 
the method of procedure which was then so signally triumphant. 



1830. 

THE APOSTASY OF THE CHURCH OF ROME CLEARLY 
DEMONSTRATED. 

Ad Intei'im. 

ORDER OF MORNING AND EVENING SACRIFICE THROUGHOUT 
THE YEAR. 

Submitted to the Church of Christ. 

THE CROWN OF THE ASCENDENCY OF TRUTH, ETC. 

1838. 
FREE THOUGHTS ON PROTESTANT MATTERS. 

An Essay on the Constitution— in Theory, in Practice, in Possibility. Dedicated, 
by permission, to Benjamin Disraeli, Esq., M. P. 



"Original, eloquent, and powerful."— T/ie Statesman. 



ESSAY ON THE SEVENTY WEEKS. 
Preached before the University of Dublin, Ireland. 



THE WAY, THE TRUTH, AND THE LIFE. 

A Series of Discourses Preached in St. Peters, Hammersmith, England. 
With an Appendix. 

A Summary of Philosophy; or, an Essay on the Metaphysics of the 
Holy Scriptures. 

ESSAY ON THE FIRST LESSON FOR THE MORNING OF THE NATIVITY. 
Here, for the first time. Correctly Expounded. 

THE TIME AND THE CHURCH OF IRELAND. 

^ 

'^THE MOST HOLY AND ADORABLE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS." 
J^n. Illustration. 

The Illustration, so Entitled, Explained and Justified. 



"THE ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION SPOKEN OF BY 
DANIEL THE PEOPHET." 

^ 

' THE MOST HOLY AND ADORABLE SACRIFICE OF THE MASS/ 



THE ILLUSTRATION SO ENTITLED EXPLAINED AND JUSTIFIED. 



Undoubtedly the most extraordinary object in the world is that which is called 
by the Roman Catholics "■ The Host of the Mass " — otherwise the Victim, (for 
the word HOST, hostiam Latin, means vec/zm), or " Sacrifice of the Mass." Accord- 
ing to the theory of the Romanists, this consecrated wafer is the very and true 
God — "the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ."" And millions believe 
this, and have powerful arguments, as it appears to them, to show that there is the 
height of wisdom manifested on the part of the Lord in being pleased to allow 
Himself to be thus presented to men. On the other hand, Protestants believe the 
whole theory to be " a mockery, a delusion, and a snare ;" that it is the corner- 
stone of a system invented by priests and based on a perversion of the words and 
true meaning of our Lord. And so, we have Christendom divided into two great 
parties — the Romanists and their sympathisers on the one side ; and those who 
protest against their views, and are therefore called Protestants, on the other. 
Either view, however, justifies our opening observation. For that Deity should be 
so presentable — in appearance, weak, perishing, evanescent — to be seen, taken 
in the hand, and eaten up, would be most astonishing. Whereas, on the other 
hand, that such an object, according to our views so paltry and despicable, should, 
as the centre of a system of lying, hypocrisy and delusion, have wrought m the 
world the wonders it has wrought, would render it only less marvelous and sur- 
prising. Now we avow that we take the Protestant view of the subject; but we 
have been led much beyond the ordinary Protestant theory, and have witten a 
very elaborate work, entitled, "The Mystery of God Finished," in which we 
prove to demonstration that the idol of the mass is described at large, as a diabolical 
object, in the Bible — but all through in the way of enigma and dark allusion. It 
seems to have been the wisdom of God to allow man's genius to work upon 
revealed truth with perfectly unlimited freedom, with the view of demonstrating 
to the universe what an extraordinary system of priestscraft, kingcraft, and 
unlimited dominion over His people and over their lives, properties, and liberties 
would grow out of this permitted liberty. The system, thus matured, had reduced 
the whole world to darkness and serfdom till the sixteenth century. Then God 
raised up Luther, whose wondrous prophesyings of simple verity shook the earth, 
liberated some mighty nations, and wrought upon the whole world. But a ncAV 
demonstration was necessary, and here, agam, the Lord allowed the generation of 
great and devoted men— martyrs and heroes— to pass away, and He gave again 
perfectly unlimited freedom to man's genius to work with and upon the 
magnificent verities which the Luthers, the Calvin s, the Latimers, the Cranmers, 
the Ridleys, and the Bradf ords had developed— and with what result ? Why, it is 
the plain fact that religious anarchy has well-nigh drowned the world, flooding it 
with licentiousness, infidelity, and misery; and these reacting towards an absolute 
restoration of that very Popery which the Reformation had exploded— as consti- 
tuting, according to man's present views, the lesser of evils. At this stage God 
again interposes, and by a new devel©\pment of His truth infinitely transcending 
that which He was pleased to grant above three centuries ago. He opens His 
word, so as to enable us to conquer the grave, to raise the dead, to unite the 
Church, to regenerate the world.* But the first step to all these surpassingly 
marvelous results is the full exposure of the mystery of what is called " The most 
Holy and Adorable Sacrifice of the Mass." This exposure is exhaustively accom- 
plished in our aforementioned work, but is briefly shown in our illustration. 

The picture is intended to give an idea of the Altar in the Roman Catholic 
Church with what is called the monstrance, or remonstrance standing on it, and to 
reveal, according to the light now thrown upon the subject by opened Scripture, a 
view of the spiritual circumstances connected with the host of the mass, as it is 
receiving the worship of those who are led to believe in its divinity. 

* See Petition to Convocation of York and Canterbury, 1862-3; and, also, Instrument 
of Ministerial Testimony.— T/^^* lalter is reproduced at page 129 of this volume. 



A SUMMARY OF PHILOSOPHY; OR, AN ESSAY OX THE METAPHYSICS 
OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE. 



Ascertains the indubitable essential difference (which is not reason) in humanity* 
unfolds the true theory of vision, free from the absurd impossibilities that 
equally pervade the molecular and undulatory hypotheses, and 
explodes generally the mischievous dreams of the rational- 
istic metaphysicians from Locke to Kant. 



THE STEA:M L0C0:SI0TIVE REA'EALED IX THE BIBLE. 
An Exposition of Ezekiel I. 

(Otherwise absolutely unintelligible). 

LEVIATHAX'. 

THE IROXCLADS OF THE SEA REVEALED IX THE BIBLE. 



An Exposition of Job xli. 



KIXG EDWARD VI. 
An Historical Drama, in Five Acts, after the Elizabethan ]NIodel. 



" We close the volume with a deep feeling of admiration, recognizing in it a worthy 
revival of the Elizabethan Drama."— T^e Jate Ernes<t -Jones, in the "PeoijJe'.s Paper." 

SlXRY TUDOR. FIRST QITEX' REGEXT OF EXGLAXD. 
A Drama in Five Acts. 

" Many a clergyman has secured a mitre for a less effort than this."— i?^?\ Richard 
Wilson, D.I)., in the ''Educational Times." 

QI'EEX ELIZABETH: OB, THE ORIC^X OF SHAKESPEARE. 
A Drama in Five Acts. 



'- Surpasses the previous dramas of the author."— i)?^&?/?z Evening Mail. 

THE JESEIDE. 
In Five BorAs. 

Bt David. Kixg of Israel, axd others. 

Translated into English Terse, from the Original Hebrew, with Xotes Critical and 
Ex]Dlanatory; together with 

'' THE MAX OF DOOM/' AND OTHEJl PIECES. 



1861. 
THE MYSTERY OF GOD FINISHED. 



Unseals the hidden words of Daniel, and affords a clue to the hitherto unexplored 
depths and recesses of the Word of God. 

THIRD EDITION. 

SERMONS ON THE DOCTRINES OF THE CHURCH. 
With an Appendix, and Notes on Its Discipline. 

1868. 
THE TIME OF THE RESTITUTION OF ALL THINGS. 



A Demonstrative Lecture. 



SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE EMPLOYMENT OF A NOVUM 

OR GANUM MOBALIUM ; 

Or, Thoughts on the Nature of the Differential Calculus, and on the Application 
of its Principles to Metaphysics, with a view to the attainment of Demon- 
stration and Certainty in Moral, Political and Ecclesiastical affairs. 

This short work discovers the source of the true, the beautiful, and the sublime, 
in poetry and in expression, and of the degeneracy of the present age in these 
particulars ; and affords a clue to the solution of most of the mysteries that 
have in every age exercised the minds of men. 



" Your conclusions are indubitable, and may be otherwise attained to.'"— Rev. Richard 
Wilson, D.D., late Fellow of S*. John's College, Cambridge, Editor of the ''Educational 
Times.'''' 



THE ALPHOMEGAIC PRINCIPLE; 

Or, a brief Explanation of the Philological sense in which the Lord Jesus, the 
Messiah, is the Alpha and Omega of the Sacred Scriptures. 

THIRD EDITION. 

METHODIZATION OF THE HEBREW VERBS, REGULAR 
AND IRREGULAR. 

The most effective key to the difficulties of the Hebrew tongue ever given to 

students. 



" I consider your 'Methodization of the Hebrew Verbs ' the very best Manual of the 
Hebrew Grammer that is in existence ;— for the verbs regular and irregular, may be 
said to comprise the essentials of the whole Grammer ; nor do I think that without it 
any one can be complete master of the subject. I am delighted to find that you propose 
to bring out a Third 'KO.itiow.''— Letter from tlie Rev. George Fish, LL.D., Prehendar^j 
of Lichfield, and Rector of Great Malvern. 



ON THE Sacred law of 1866, 

CONFERRING PERPETUAL LIFE WITH IMMUNITY FROM 
DECAY AND DISEASE. 



-^- 



A CENTO OF DECISIVE SCEIPTURAL ORACLES 

STRANGEL Y DISCO YEBEB. 

SHOWING WHENCE, FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT, THE 
MYSTICAL NUMBER 

666 

IS DRAWX INTO THE APOCALYPSE, AND THAT IT CONSTITUTES 

THE KEY 

TO THE GATE OF IMMORTALITY. 



: ru^z ^*Ni n.'c^ ";c v^N- nnr^ ^r^y^'T: - M-n^D nn^^ \nn:'i 

'O yiK0DV,8GD6GD aVTGDKahl6ai f.lET 8f.lOV Sr TGDfjpoyGDllOVy'^GD'^KayGD 

sviH7/6a, Kai 8Hahi6a /.lera rov Ttarpo^ jtiov. — Anou. y.21. 

" Htec dicit, Sanctiis et verax ille, qui liabet clavera Davidis: qui aperit, et nemo 
clandit: claiidit. et nemo aperit."' — Aiwc. Hi. 7. 



BY 

TRESHAM DAMES GREGG, D.D., 

Chantry Priest of St. Nicholas Within , Dublin . 



LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO., 
DUBLIN: HODGES, FOSTER & CO., 

1875. 

lAU Rights Reserved.'} 



preih^ce;. 



In publishing a book which affirms that the Editor has discovered in the Bible 
C5 the law of literal corporeal immortality, with that of perpetual health and 
freedom from decay, he thinks it proper to say that he is aware of the incredulity 
with which it will at first be encountered, but at the same time satisfied that it will 
overcome all opposition, and lead to the final and universal establishment of the 
principal contended for. He will devote this Preface to an endeavour to meet a 
few obvious objections. 1. There are texts countless of the character of the 
following, viz. : — " It is appointed unto men once to die, and after death the judg- 
ment "(ZTeft. ix. S7); "The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and 
if by reason of their strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour 
and sorrow, so soon passeth it away and we are gone " {Psa. xc. 10.) ; "Ye know 
not what shall be on the morrow, for what is your life? It is even a vapour that 
appeareth for a little time, and then vauisheth away '* {Jas. iv. lU); such passages 
conveying the burden of almost the whole Bible are innumerable. Granted; yet 
are they all preliminary to a future of a totally different character, which was as 
elaborately foreshown by prophets and apostles, and which is often set forth, and 
very particularly near the end of the last book in the Bible thus: " There shall be 
no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for 
the former things are passed away." {Pev. xxi. k). Now, the coming of this future 
repeals all these texts, showing that they belong to " the former things " which 
should "pass away, " and which have passed away by the formal message which 
was delivered to all mankind by a duly ordained, retained, and paid servant of tha 
Lord Jesus Christ, at the appointed and expected time in 1866, the year foreshown 
from the beginning of the world, as these pages prove. Hence, the objections 
based on these texts are groundless. 2. Men say the Apostles are dead— the 
Prophets are dead — all the holy men of old are dead, and can we suppose that you 
and we should be exceptions to the universal law of death at the usual limit of 
threescore or fourscore years? Now, I ask, did Peter or Paul, did James or John, 
did Abraham or Malachi live at a. d. 1866 ? If then that year were the year of 
doom, why should the death of these men of God at an antecedent epoch oppose 
itself to our survival, when the time— even the set time— hath come ? Literal 
immortality was tied to the epoch of which I have made mention, and to a law 
which that epoch should introduce; therefore deaths at a previous period were 
as necessary as it was to travel by sail vessels and waggon service in the 16th cen- 
tury, or to do without magnetic telegraphy in the 18th. 3. But, men have been 
dying ever since 1866; none have survived since. Well, Christ came as the Saviour 
of the soul in a. d. 1. He suffered in a. d. 33. His religion was very generally 
received about the age of Constantine in the 4th century; yet ever since souls 



have perished throngh infidelity or incomplete faith in the Redeemer. Why 
should not like causes sufilciently explain the death of Christians in the body 
since 1866 ? Let this little work he studied in all its facts, and it sets forth noth- 
ing but Scriptural truths, which not one in a thousand million have ever heard 
of; and that although the commands were express and imperative, read therein by 
tlmj, meditate therein by night, yet not one obeyed the command, why then should 
we wonder that " that day '' came upon them as " a thief in the night," and as '* a 
snare upon all those that dwell upon the face of the earth," {2 Pet. Hi 10; Luke 
xxi, 35.) !+. It will be objected to me that I call myself in the title a Chantry 
priest, and I shall be asked what is a Chantry priest ? A Chantry priest is simply 
a Christian minister set apart for a service of song, in a Chantry Chapel or place 
of song. But as the denomination is close to my subject, and as the meeting of 
the objection will be important to the whole Church, I shall meet it by a new and 
more exact rendering of the celebrated passage from Job xix., that occurs in the 
Burial Service, and which, properly interpreted, will help my cause, and do a 
great amount, as I trust, of general good. Verses 25, 26, 27 : "For I know that 
there will be redeemers of life [that is, an order of men set apart to raise the 
dead], and that in the latter day they shall assemble them over the dust [of the 
dead that is] ; and after my awakening \i. e., after my spirit shall be awakened to 
expect its junction with the body], they shall smite upon this [the dust], and from 
my flesh [i. e., with a raised body] I shall behold God: whom I shall see for 
myself [i. 6., standing up on my behalf ' I shall see for me ' on my side], and not a 
strange [or hostile] {see Deut. xxxii 12, Heb.) God. I have said enough " [that is, 
I have completely finished my oracle].* Now, the redeemers of life, or restorers 
of life through our Lord, here spoken of, are just chantry priests — clergymen 
specially set apart to raise the dead. 1, as a fisher of men, am constantly occupied in 
efforts to affect this object, and I am sure that I shall at last succeed. The grave 
is the true Purgatory. The purgatory of Eomanisim is simply the revival by Anti- 
christ, the Roman Pontiff, of the mythological purgatory of the pagan Roman poets, 
very elegantly set forth by Virgil in ^neid, lib. vi., 735,750, and elsewhere also 
refferred to, but it is simply fabulous. However, what the grave of the Christian 
receives in corruption, it sends forth in incorruption ; what it admits in dishonor, 
it opens out to glory ; and what it gets in weakness, it raises in power; changing 

* " They shall assemble them " (Hebrew C*(p^) according to the A. V., the 
future of 2175 to stand. Accordingly, our translators 'have " He shall stand." But I 
submit that 'it is the future of nip» with elision of a * and 2 [= theni] aflixed. The 
same verb occurs ( (t6/i. i. 9)asV(p^5 Let the waters be gathered." The oracle thus 
viewed shows that there are two' stages in the work of resurrection — the first being 
the awakening of the Spirit, and the next a smiting or shaking of the buried 
debris; as above, "They shall smite upon this." I belive our Lord alludes to 
this in " Knock and it shall be opened to you; " and it is also alluded to in " the 
valley of dry bones " of Ezek. xxxvii, 7, " And behold a shaking " — -.the smiting 
mentioned above shaking the graves. The concluding words ^p^^^ 1^^.which.are 
pointed to mean, " my reins are consumed," are, as I submit, for '^^1*'^^ *' 1 ^^ ^ 
" finishing, I have finished "—said enough, i. e., the participle and preterite of 'kal 
1st singular. Perhaps it will not be denied to be memorable that the oracle actually 
involves the date An. Bom. When this wonderful advance in Di\dne knowledge 
should begin to operate; for, through the principle of numerical equivalence men- 
tioned elsewhere, the passage changed will read thus: — " For I know that there will 
be redeemers of life, and that in 1870 they will assemble them over the dust," etc. 
If this refer to the decade (as it well may) that decade which follows next after the 
famous 60th of the nineteenth century, now current, and if within its limits there 
should be a realization of the truth, it would be a matter of remembrance for 
ever. 



natural to spiritual, and crumbling Adamic dust to imperishable Messianic body. 
Thus am I a chantry priest, expecting in no long time to lead the worship in my 
restored church, that will be habitually visited by celestial beings delighting to 
present themselves in the kingdom of God on earth— once again rendered a 
Paradise. I call myself a chantry priest, for such I am by the ancient law of the 
Church, towards which I have always comported myself with the simplicity of a 
little child {see Matt, xviii. 3), and I am convinced that such tractableness is 
absolutely necessary if men would enjoy the kingdom of heaven. My clients are 
nine individuals, viz.: John, Earl of Worcester, aad Elizabeth, his wife; Sir 
Edward Dudley, and Matilda, his wife; Sir Thomas Bathe, John Chevir, Thomas 
Bermingham, Stephen Butler, and John West. These it is my solemn duty to 
liberate from Purgatory, that is, to raise from the dead; and two additional con- 
fraternities of nine each are superadded to my care. Now my work as a chantry 
priest is specialy devoted to these ; and by the overthrow of the recusant Church 
of Ireland, the Lord has given me a clear stage for my work. Aid in it I much 
require. The site of my chapel, the ancient Church of St. Nicholas Within, Dub- 
lin, remains to me secured by law. Now I ask the benevolent of the Church 
universal to assist with me in its restoration. Sir Benjamin Guinness restored St. 
Patrick's Church; Mr. Henry Roe is engaged in the restoration of Christ's Church. 
I solicted both these gentlemen to help in my work, but they declined to do so. 
I now in this little book bring the subject before the whole world; and I answer 
for it, that if the Lord stir up the heart of any of His servants to help thus, the 
w^ork that shall be thus completed will, by the grace and providence of God, give 
literal immortality to makind, and regenerate the whole world. 



St. Nicholas Within, Dublin, 
18t7i May, 1875 : 3:U0 2). m. 



(tQ^^SH 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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021 226 154 3 



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